The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill was introduced to the Scottish Parliament on 11 June 2014. It makes provision (amongst other things) for:

• the amendment of Part 2 (community right to buy) of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003;
• extending the community right to buy to enable bodies to buy abandoned or neglected land;
• establishing registers of common good property and about disposal and use of such property; and
• the restatement and amendment of the law on allotments.

Community right to buy
Currently, it is not possible to exercise the community right to buy over areas which have been designated as “excluded land”. Excluded land comprises land with settlements of over 10,000 people meaning that in effect the community right to buy is confined to rural areas. The new Bill makes amendments allowing community bodies to register an interest in respect of land across Scotland, irrespective of the size of settlement effectively extending the right to urban areas. In addition the Bill makes various technical and procedural amendments aimed at making the procedure for exercising the right to buy easier and more flexible.

Abandoned and neglected land
The Bill also amends the 2003 Act to extend the community right to buy to allow community bodies to purchase neglected and abandoned land where the owner is not willing to sell.

Common Good land
The Bill places a statutory duty on local authorities to establish and maintain a register of all property held by them for the common good. It also requires local authorities to publish their proposals and consult community bodies before disposing of or changing the use of common good assets.

Allotments
The Bill repeals and replaces the Allotment Acts with the aim of updating and simplifying the legislation. It requires local authorities to take reasonable steps to provide more allotments if waiting lists exceed certain trigger points and provides protection for both local authorities and plotholders.

The Bill is available from the Scottish Parliament here.

The explanatory notes are available here.