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An historic
wrong is to be righted - with the Crofting Acts being extended to Arran
Smallholdings on the island will be converted to
crofting status and the way opened for new crofts to be created on the
island.
 An
historic wrong is to be righted - with the Crofting Acts being extended to
Arran for the first time since the island was excluded from their scope in
the 1880s, Allan Wilson MSP said this week.
Mr Wilson has secured a change to the Crofting Reform Bill which will mean
that smallholdings on the island will be converted to crofting status while
the way is also opened for new crofts to be created on the island, hopefully
to be occupied by local people who currently do not have access to land.
The Cunninghame North MSP said: "There are real practical benefits for those
who will acquire crofting status - security of tenure, access to crofter
housing grants and so on. But there is also great satisfaction in the fact
that, to some extent, an historical injustice is being reversed.
"I now hope that landowners such as the Forestry Commission will make land
available for the creation of new crofts which could be tenanted by local
people. This would not only allow them entry to agriculture but would be
another means of attacking the shortage of housing on Arran. Overall, this
is a very good outcome for the island and I know that many people will
welcome it".
The former Cunninghame North MP, Brian Wilson, congratulated his Labour
colleague on the successful campaign to bring Arran under the Crofting Acts.
He said: "This is a real achievement since any extension to the area in
which crofting tenure applies has always been resisted in the past. I have
no doubt that it is Allan's influence within the Executive which has swung
it.
"In the 1880s, the county of Bute was originally included in the legislation
but the Duke of Hamilton and the MP of the day, a man named Robertson,
lobbied successfully for Bute not to be one of the crofting counties. The
whole history of Arran would have been very different if crofting tenure had
applied. Feudalism would have disappeared much earlier and there would be a
lot more native Arran people here today".
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