and promotes the interests of crofting in Scotland
to secure the future of crofting.
Crofting Register Community Mapping Project - Project Liaison Officer Appointed
16/06/2014
Earlier this year, Environment and Climate Change Minister Paul Wheelhouse MSP announced that efforts to encourage community applications to the Crofting Register were being stepped up. The Minister announced that Registers of Scotland (RoS) would lead a project, jointly funded by RoS and the Scottish Government, to support community registrations. Since the announcement of this proposed project there have been expressions of interest from a number of communities who are keen to take forward this initiative.
Registers of Scotland has successfully appointed a Community Mapping Liaison Officer who will manage the project to facilitate and encourage group registrations of crofts. The liaison officer will engage with crofting communities to provide support with technical workshops and stakeholder meetings in crofting communities. The project will also provide email and telephone support and will supply Ordnance Survey extracts that can be used by communities as the basis for the community map.
There are many benefits to group registrations including bringing communities together around a common purpose and the assurance that all croft land is captured and protected. Once on the register it will remain croft land, unless it is formally decrofted or resumed.
Group registrations also provide an organised approach for agreeing boundaries, thus minimising the risk of a challenge during the 9 month challenge period during which interested parties can raise a challenge against the extent of a registered croft by applying to the Land Court.
RoS, together with the Crofting Commission and Scottish Crofting Federation, undertook significant stakeholder engagement in the crofting counties during 2013. This has enabled RoS to build a rapport with key stakeholders and to work with crofters and local communities to deliver a number of prospective community applications. RoS will continue to work collaboratively with the Crofting Commission and other key stakeholders to maximise the benefit to crofting communities through the mapping of their croft land.
It is intended that RoS will dovetail this project with the Crofting Commission’s existing project to map all common grazings so that crofters receive synchronised support for the mapping of both their crofts and common grazings simultaneously. This will allow them to consider croft boundaries along with the boundary of common grazings and could also lead to wider asset mapping as a starting point for development of crofting assets.
For further information please contact croftenquiries@ros.gov.uk or telephone 0131 528 3726.
