THE Land Reform Act was one of the flagship pieces of legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament in its early days.
There were fears on the part of landowners and farmers that the access element of the legislation would result in the countryside being invaded by hordes from Scotland's towns and cities. That has not happened and the vast majority of visitors to rur
al Scotland have behaved admirably and exercised their rights responsibility.
However, Andrew Hamilton of the estate agents Strutt & Parker, believes there are still several issues to be addressed, notably the provision of pathways. He said: "What should have happened was the establishment of a much expanded network of public footpaths and bridleways to encourage people to get out into the countryside more and give them facilities to do just that.
"There is a core paths initiative as part of the Land Reform Act and some sort of action should be happening. That said, it has been left to the cash strapped local authorities to take on the burden. Not only is there precious little central government cash to help, but there seems to be even less guidance from the Scottish Executive on how to implement its policy.
"Few seem sure what the function of a 'core path' actually is, or what the objectives and designation are. In the absence of hints from Holyrood, the different authorities will naturally do their own thing and instead of a national network of planned and integrated paths, we are liable to end up with a hotchpotch of different schemes, which can only serve to confuse our visitors."
Hamilton reckons that Scotland needs to follow the route adopted in England where every right of way is marked on Ordnance Survey maps. Switzerland has gone a stage further: all tracks and paths throughout the entire country are marked by the same standardised yellow signs.
Most people in Scotland are well aware of the most popular trails, such as the West Highland Way, but Hamilton believes there is a need to have a greater focus on less well defined routes.
He added: "The greatest demand for informal access to the countryside must come in the areas around greatest densities of population; not only the conurbations of the central belt, but also all the other towns and ever expanding commuter villages of Scotland.
"It is the countryside around towns, which is often good quality and intensively managed farmland, rather than the hills and forests, that need further development of the path network."
Hamilton is critical of other aspects of the Land Reform Act, most notably the various rights to buy. He said: "It would be helpful, when faced with so many ambiguous parts of new laws, to have some of the rules clarified by a sheriff or a judge.
"However, no-one has so far taken the plunge. One symptom of this uncertainty has been to force parties to do their utmost to reach amicable agreements in most cases. One cannot really imagine that the Scottish Parliament was capable of being so Machiavellian as to set out to create such bad law that people would be discouraged from using it and forced into private agreements rather than troubling the courts, but that is what seems to be happening.
"Perhaps the original policy aims are being achieved, but by the back door. It does not seem much of a way to run a country. But if it is working, and you are not a lawyer, then perhaps this is not such a bad thing."
The full article contains 598 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
