04-11-2006, 08:23 AM
|
#1 (permalink)
|
|
Member
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 272
|
Scottish Executive to steal privately-owned land
I ran across this article by accident. Apparently the Scottish Executive has decided that all Crown Estate - land owned and managed by the Crown - is forefeit and should be given over to the stewardship of those people that know it best - bureaucrats and lifetime politicians in their half-billion-pound parliament building.
The article confirms quite clearly that it is nothing more than a lunge for cash - the money that the land makes. It also specifically states that there is no issue with the quality of the work being done - the issue is all official work for the entire country is now carried out at a single office. That office is not in Scotland, and this is making the nationalists unhappy.
Quote:
Crown Estate 'should be devolved'
THE Scottish Executive has been urged to take control of the Crown Estate and its millions of pounds of income to increase public benefit from land and property rights.
A new report highlights long-running concerns over the way the Crown Estate is managed, in particular the ownership of Scotland's seabed and foreshore.
The total capital value of the Crown Estate in Scotland is £216.5 million and last year it made a profit of £11.5 million, which goes to the UK Treasury.
At present, the Crown Estate Commission (CEC) controls about half of Scotland's foreshore and nearly all the seabed out to a distance of 12 miles.
More than £2 million of its income comes from rents for fish farms and over £8 million from properties and land, including part of Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh.
However, it is widely felt the body has become more remote and should be brought under Scottish control.
The report contrasts the post-devolution position of the CEC, which closed its Scottish HQ and moved its management to England, with the Forestry Commission, which set up an organisation in Scotland accountable to Holyrood and acting as a department of the Executive.
Robin Callander, the report's author, said: "The CEC's recent re-structuring away from devolution has increased existing issues about the lack of accountability in Scotland over the CEC's operations in Scotland and the limited benefits in Scotland from its management of the Scottish resources which form the Crown Estate."
He said there was a historic opportunity for the Executive and Scottish Secretary to use devolution to carry out a review "to ensure that the property, rights and interests which make up the Crown Estate in Scotland contribute more fully to the delivery of Scottish Executive policies and the wellbeing of the people of Scotland".
The report, presently in draft form, was drawn up for the Crown Estate Review Working Group (CERWG), made up of Highlands and Islands Enterprise and the local authorities in Highland, Moray, Argyll and Bute, Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles.
At Holyrood yesterday, Alasdair Morrison, the Western Isles MSP, urged Jack McConnell, the First Minister, to carry out a review of the Crown Estate, while Jim Wallace, the MSP for Orkney, talked of a fundamental need to change its role and status.
Mr McConnell said: "This report has just been published and we will read it with interest, consider its conclusions and comment in due course."
The report was approved yesterday by Highland Council, which has led a campaign to remove control from the CEC.
One area where it is thought more control is needed is the potential development of offshore renewables such as wind farms and wave and tidal plants, said to be worth £10 billion. Mr Callander said: "The positive support of Scottish Ministers for this sector should be linked to recognition that, at present, Scotland will not secure the revenue from the use of Scotland's seabed by the sector and that the CEC agrees the terms of such use centrally in London with no formal requirement to take account of Scottish interests."
He said the UK Marine Bill, planned for 2007, could provide an opportunity to devolve the CEC's responsibilities for Scotland's seabed and foreshore to the Executive.
A Crown Estate spokeswoman said: "We have recently been sent the first draft of the CERWG's report. We note that in presenting its findings, the working group has consistently interwoven facts with opinion into the report, with the effect of directing the reader to a particular point of view.
"The Crown Estate does not consider the draft report correctly records the factual position of the Crown Estate or of its interests. Therefore we await the final draft of the report and the various recommendations made within it, which we will consider as part of our formal response to be made in due course."
|
http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1627152006 |
|
|
Linear Mode
