The Scottish Government spent over £10m purchasing land for community groups in 2017/18, a rise of more than £6m on the year. The land purchases have been developed into a wide range of projects from urban buildings to large-scale woodlands.

The largest grant was for the North West Mull Community Woodland Company who received £4,415,200. The project is to manage the Langamull and West Ardhu forests on the island.

Projects

Out of a total of 38 projects the average award from the Scottish Government was £268,690 – more than double the previous year’s hand out. The most popular area for local buy outs was in Argyll and Islands where eight grants were paid. The previous year the largest number of grants were paid to the Caithness and Orkney area with five successful applications. The biggest grant for the 2016/17 grant window went to local campaign group “Action Porty” who received £647,500 to develop a community church in Portobello.

The Scottish Government said: “The Scottish Land Fund supports communities to become more resilient and sustainable through the ownership and management of land and buildings. The grants usually go on to develop a large number of projects and activities in connection with the assets they have acquired, in line with their respective business plans.

“To do so, they access funds from a very wide range of organisations, including for example, the Big Lottery Community Assets programme, government agencies, local authorities, as well as a range of private sector organisations including charities, banks, local trust funds etc.”

The information was obtained by an FOI to the Scottish Government.