manage land is not a yes / no decision but often one that is actively debated and ... positive relationship with owner; concerns about the liabilities of ownership; ... constitute, manage themselves, protect themselves (through inspections and ...... Before that it was the dog walkers and they don't want the place disturbed. We.
Factors affecting community tenure of woodlands and greenspaces in central Scotland A report to Central Scotland Green Network Trust Anna Lawrence, Random Forest Research, September 2018 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1. This report explores the experiences of community groups in central Scotland, with a view to understanding what limits community land tenure in this region. Central Scotland is Scotland’s most densely populated region, with a legacy of intensive industrial land use and economic cycles of investment and decline, and widely varying physical and social conditions. Community groups which have control over the use and management of greenspace are fewer than in other parts of Scotland. The report uses qualitative methods which enable groups to describe their experiences and feelings in their own words, in order to convey the variety of experience. 2. The study found four main drivers for community-managed greenspace: to address neglect in public (or rarely, private) land; to protect land from housing development; to develop access and recreation; and, less often, to grow food and demonstrate sustainable urban production. 3. There is no hard and fast boundary between ‘success’ and ‘failure’. Groups, and their visions and actions, are continually evolving and adapting to experience. The decision to own, lease or manage land is not a yes / no decision but often one that is actively debated and considered over months or years. 4. In the densely populated central Scotland region with a mix of longstanding residents (some having suffered from industrial decline) and incomers (perhaps living in new build and commuting out to work, or retired and with time available), ‘community’ groups are not always typical or representative in the way that they would be in, say, a rural Highland community. Many highlighted a context of declining social capital, associations and community activity. 5. Most of the groups were small groups of enthusiasts, who saw their work as being ‘on behalf’ of the community. Sometimes they felt appreciated and supported by the wider community, but they could also perceive disinterest, a culture of entitlement in former industrial communities, and occasionally a level of social friction, particularly from neighbouring householders. So while anti-social behaviour includes widespread experience of vandalism, theft, and use of the woodland for consumption of alcohol and drugs, it also includes householders who cut trees down to improve their view, or use the woodland to dump their unwanted possessions or waste. More often, groups just felt short of volunteers and taken for granted by the wider population. 6. While this social context is sometimes discouraging, most groups take it in their stride. Both the current study, and an analysis of complementary survey data, suggest that the main constraints are not the locality and the community, but rather the challenges of the management process: finding time and funds; dealing with paperwork, rules and regulations; getting technical advice and support; and not knowing who to ask for help. Given that most of those interviewed were people who had made progress towards their vision, and yet found these issues challenging, there must be many more in the apparently disinterested wider community who have been put off by the challenge. This was borne out by several interviewees who highlighted lack of confidence and experience, and who found the forms and processes involved in constituting, fundraising, getting legal advice, and acquiring property, extremely daunting – sometimes leading to stress and burnout.
7. Although the report focuses on challenges and constraints, these and other groups have achieved much of great value. Outcomes include increased recreational use and awareness of the wood or greenspace, improved quality and quantity of woodland, and creation of iconic community spaces and social enterprises. These are achieved through voluntary work and passion, sometimes enhanced through access to funding and energy not available to government or private sectors. 8. Groups had adopted a wide range of tenure models, from guerrilla planting through management agreements and licences to occupy, to leaseholds and ownership. It was easier to find groups with management agreements than those who owned or leased land. Many groups do not want to own land, for reasons which included: concerns about longevity of the group and succession; existing positive relationship with owner; concerns about the liabilities of ownership; lack of [confidence in] the group’s knowledge and skills; and previous negative experiences. Others were actively considering a change in tenure but taking time to assess options. The timescale for such decisions often spanned years. 9. The study identified two main types of landowner as particularly significant for community woodland in central Scotland: local authorities, and property developers. Most of the land owned by groups in this study had come through Section 75 agreements (Planning Obligations) or similar arrangements with developers. On the other hand, property developers were cited as opponents to several groups who had been unsuccessful in attempted land purchase. No group had bought woodland or greenspace from a local authority, although several were considering that as a route to prevent sale of locally appreciated sites to property developers. Awareness of land reform and community empowerment legislation which would facilitate community land purchase, was mixed, and had only been used by one group. 10. The groups accessed a range of support organisations and networks. They highlighted the importance of advisors who understood the circumstances of the group. Some are worn down by what is often described as paperwork but is more often computer work. Several reported spending more time at a desk than in the woods, in order to complete requirements to constitute, manage themselves, protect themselves (through inspections and insurance, for example) and constantly seek funding. Community greenspace management requires skills in financial management, volunteer management, fundraising, communication and sometimes familiarity with legislation and legal language – among many other skills. A scarcity of willing individuals with these particular skills can place pressure on those who do have them. 11. Guidance and support can be adapted to the reality of central Scotland by recognising the need for connection with the experience of others, and inspiration from success; signposting to existing advice and funding opportunities; improved accessibility of support and funding through simplification of process and forms to be filled in; skills training adapted to the needs of groups; and appointment of a single friendly informed point of contact in each local authority, who can support groups and take a proactive approach to publicising opportunities and positive experiences of other community groups. 12. The study draws attention to the significant roles, both positive and negative, of property developers and builders in this region. There is potential to consider these roles more comprehensively, and to build them in to guidance on planning, implementation of land reform and community empowerment legislation, and support to community groups. Both developers and community groups would benefit from a more consistent approach, reduced tension and worry, and more strategic consideration of how community assets can be combined with new housing supply.
CONTENTS 1
INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 4 1.1 Background: community woodlands in Central Scotland ....................................................... 4 1.2 Purpose of this study .............................................................................................................. 4 1.3 How was the study carried out? ............................................................................................. 5 1.4 Structure of the report ........................................................................................................... 5 2 CONTEXTS AND JOURNEYS ...................................................................................................... 5 2.1 Motivations and drivers ......................................................................................................... 5 2.2 Evolving groups ...................................................................................................................... 6 2.3 Constraints ............................................................................................................................. 7 3 COMMUNITY .......................................................................................................................... 7 3.1 Sense of community ............................................................................................................... 7 3.2 Anti-social behaviour .............................................................................................................. 7 3.3 Neighbours ............................................................................................................................. 8 3.4 Inclusivity and social capital ................................................................................................... 8 4 COMMUNITY ORGANISATION ................................................................................................. 9 4.1 Types of organisation ............................................................................................................. 9 4.2 Volunteers .............................................................................................................................. 9 4.3 Sustainability ........................................................................................................................ 10 5 LAND AVAILABILITY AND TENURE ......................................................................................... 10 5.1 Finding land .......................................................................................................................... 10 5.2 A spectrum of tenure options .............................................................................................. 11 5.3 Attitudes to different options .............................................................................................. 12 5.4 Reasons not to own land ...................................................................................................... 12 5.5 More on particular forms of tenure ..................................................................................... 13 5.6 Awareness and interest in land reform legislation ............................................................... 14 6 LANDOWNERS ...................................................................................................................... 14 6.1 Local authorities ................................................................................................................... 14 6.2 Tenure relations with local authorities ................................................................................ 15 6.3 Developers ............................................................................................................................ 16 6.4 Private landowners ............................................................................................................... 17 7 PROCESS OF ACQUIRING OWNERSHIP OR LEASE ................................................................... 17 7.1 Constituting .......................................................................................................................... 17 7.2 Paperwork ............................................................................................................................ 18 7.3 Building evidence ................................................................................................................. 18 7.4 Time and energy dissipation ................................................................................................ 19 7.5 Relationships ........................................................................................................................ 19 7.6 Conflict ................................................................................................................................. 20 7.7 Experience of the Community Asset Transfer process ......................................................... 20 8 RESOURCES ........................................................................................................................... 20 8.1 Skills, knowledge and confidence ......................................................................................... 20 8.2 Learning from other groups ................................................................................................. 21 8.3 Support ................................................................................................................................. 21 8.4 Funding ................................................................................................................................. 22 9 OUTCOMES ........................................................................................................................... 23 10 CONCLUSIONS ...................................................................................................................... 24 APPENDIX 1 METHODS AND SAMPLE ..................................................................................... 26 APPENDIX 2 ADDITIONAL DATA FROM CSGN SURVEYS .......................................................... 26
1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background: community woodlands in Central Scotland This report explores the experiences of community groups in central Scotland, with a view to understanding what limits community land tenure in this region. The report has a particular focus on woodlands but includes groups with a range of land-based aspirations. It helps to understand the issues from group members’ points of view, in order to develop better support for delivering the vision of Scotland’s land-based agenda. This agenda is described in The Scottish Land Rights and Responsibilities Statement which includes a vision where • There should be a more diverse pattern of land ownership and tenure, with more opportunities for citizens to own, lease and have access to land. • More local communities should have the opportunity to own, lease or use buildings and land which can contribute to their community's wellbeing and future development.1 Under the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 the Community Right to Buy powers have been extended to urban Scotland, so that every local community has the opportunity to benefit from the advantages of community ownership under this right to buy. The Central Scotland Green Network operates in an area which covers just under 10,000 km2, and with 3.5 million residents is Scotland’s most densely populated region, in an area of shared industrial heritage, with widely varying physical and social conditions.2 The Central Scotland Green Network Trust has supported community woodlands through its longer history as the Central Scotland Forest Trust. Community woodlands take a range of forms, and are growing in number across Scotland, but it is perceived that fewer community groups in Central Scotland are owning or leasing their woodlands. Previous work highlights the lack of community woodlands in urban areas in Scotland.3 One study of local authority woodland management found a total of only two community woodlands leased from councils, one in each of Scotland’s two largest cities.4 More are in (formal or informal) management agreements with private landowners or local authorities, an arrangement which is seen as less empowering, and less fitting with policy agendas of land reform and community empowerment. 1.2
Purpose of this study
The study aims to address the following questions, in the context of central Scotland: • • •
What objectives are communities pursuing by getting involved in their woodlands? Why would some communities or individuals within communities not engage in their woodlands and greenspaces? What motivates these communities and individuals, and what if anything would motivate more individuals to participate and engage in their community greenspace?
Discussion with the project management team indicated that the main interest was in constraints and challenges, i.e. understanding why community groups do not proceed as far as they would like, 1
https://www.gov.scot/Publications/2017/09/7869 http://www.centralscotlandgreennetwork.org/delivering/our-vision 3 Lawrence A, van der Jagt APN, Ambrose-Oji B, Stewart A. (2015) Local Authorities: A catalyst for community engagement in urban forests? In: Johnston M, editor. Proceedings of 'Trees and People in the Built Environment II' conference, 2-4 April 2014, p. 160-70. Available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270506441_Local_Authorities_in_Scotland_A_Catalyst_for_Community_Engag ement_in_Urban_Forests 4 van der Jagt A, Lawrence A. Trees and Woods in Scottish Towns: the role of Local Authorities. Available at https://tinyurl.com/y8kcuslw. Forest Research, Roslin, Midlothian; 2014. 2
whether with forming a group, constituting, developing their aims, finding a woodland, and / or then achieving the desired form of tenure. 1.3
How was the study carried out?
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 groups across central Scotland, identified through intermediary organisations (Community Woodland Association (CWA), CSGN, Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS), Edinburgh and Lothians Greenspace Trust (ELGT)), the author’s own contacts, and suggestions made by groups themselves. The study also draws on data collected through two surveys conducted by CSGN in 2017, to collect information from community woodland groups and the public, in the central Scotland area. Methods for the study are described in more detail in Appendix 1. Intensive efforts were made to identify groups which had considered establishing a community woodland but had not taken the idea forward. Although few, there were some informative responses and the report focuses more on the issues of failure, disappointment, or very slow change, compared with other reports on the community woodland sector. Because of the qualitative methods used, respondents were able to describe their feelings and opinions in their own words, and the report makes extensive use of quotations, which are given in indented italics.5 In this way the report shares experiences and aims to convey the variety of experience, and the fact that there is no hard and fast boundary between ‘success’ and ‘failure’. Groups, and their visions and actions, are continually evolving and adapting to experience. 1.4
Structure of the report
The report starts by looking at groups’ motivations and aspirations, and how that has evolved over time, in section 2. It then looks at the two main components of a community greenspace – the community, and the land. Taking first the community, section 3 considers the relationships between ‘community groups’ and communities in central Scotland, where pressures on population and land use are high, and past industry has left its legacy; section 4 then considers the challenges to the group in terms of constituting and managing itself. Turning to the question of land, Section 5 considers briefly the question of land availability; Section 6 explores interviewees’ opinions and experience of land tenure: owning land, or making agreements with the owner of the land; and Section 7 summarises the characteristics of different kinds of landowner – in this area, principally local authorities and property developers. Sections 8 and 9 consider respectively the process of acquiring community land, and the resources needed to do so. Finally Section 10 summarises some observations about outcomes of community land tenure – this section is brief because it was not the main focus of the study. Section 11 concludes by revisiting the objectives of the study and summarising the findings. 2
2.1
CONTEXTS AND JOURNEYS
Motivations and drivers
Among the groups interviewed, drivers for community ownership or management of land fall broadly into four categories. Groups may want to: 1. address neglect in council-owned (or rarely, private) land - Before I moved there nobody had gone into the woods except that the opencast company sometimes used it for training. 2. protect land from housing development - We thought about it to try and prevent more house building because there has been a lot of 5
All interviewees are quoted anonymously in line with professional ethical practice.
building in this area. 3. develop access and recreation (local footpaths) - That is what we are about, to provide something for the use of locals. They’ve used these paths for hundreds of years but they’d never been made up until our group was formed and we did it properly. 4. grow food and explore / demonstrate sustainable urban production - We are not an environmental group we are a regeneration group, the environment is a means to an end. It’s a community garden group in a deprived area, they wanted to set up a community garden to get the community together and to feed themselves. Big old council estate, blocks of flats have been knocked down and left derelict. 2.2
Evolving groups
Forming a community woodland group, or a community garden group, is not represented by a moment in time. The groups were changing and considering options. Sometimes change happened when one member’s circumstances changed: I did quite a lot of hillwalking but I had an accident three years ago and realised I couldn’t do much; I wanted to keep my fitness up and couldn’t get far. So I went up to the woods every week for a few hours and hacked back at the rhoddies, it just grew from there … I now feel an attachment in the wood, I’ve done a bit more. Many described a change in relationship with their local authority over time: Initially it was more a case of kind of chasing the council to do certain things. They don’t move quickly. We’d like to get things done, they have been quite awkward. Luckily they have seen the amount of work we’ve put in, that has pushed open a few doors. They’ve met us half way. Bit of a result, we have purchased 120 heavy saplings, after strong resistance they have already planted about 70-80 of those trees. It’s a bit grudging but the people on the ground are good. We are in the process of collaborating with the council, they are supporting what we do. It’s gone from a complete full on fight to collaborating. Some interviewees felt that it takes unusual levels of social confidence to bring about change: [community asset transfer is for] more your kind of Kelvinside type … empowered people who know their rights, have more time and energy More challenging is change in areas with very low social capital, confidence or trust in organisations and government. In one housing estate, a council employee was approached by a local resident who has seen community gardens nearby, and felt they could do something similar, but had no idea how to start. She said, we need to do something about [this place], we are all skint, and there’s this abandoned play park. Most groups had further aspirations, or at least an idea of where they could take things in the future: We have a number of woodlands in this area, they all run into each other, but there are others along the coastal path that need attention. It would be great to think the woodlands group could take under its wing. There is a significant opportunity there. Others are already on the way to substantial expansion and felt they were breaking new ground for community groups: There will be some big challenges … selecting the successful [contractor], securing additional funding, obtaining planning permission, and managing the build………………….! The rewards could be big for the community especially as the town could grow by thirty five per cent with LDP2
plans (another 1740 homes!) 2.3 Constraints The earlier CSGN surveys provided data about factors stopping people from progressing. An analysis of that data suggests that: • The biggest off-putting factors are: time, how to start, funding, skills, support from outside, red tape. • Least off-putting factors are: lack of site, too much responsibility / liability, don't want change, anti-social behaviour, lack of local interest • Factors where respondents showed most consensu: 'time' (61% agree they don't have it); not knowing where to start (48% agree); anti-social behaviour (51% are not put off); and lack of skills (41% agree). This first-cut of quantitative data appears to send a clear message. Of the 75 people who took the time to respond, they do not on the whole see local site, interest, behaviour or responsibility as the problems. Instead the constraints are specific resources and external factors such as knowledge, time, red tape and external support. 3
COMMUNITY
In this section we consider how the community groups sit within their communities, the degree of social inclusivity, the role of volunteers, and social challenges experienced by them. 3.1
Sense of community
One of the challenges in more densely populated areas, is to identify a natural community, and to find widespread support from that community. Interviewees from supporting organisations noted that communities were often socially mixed. Most of the groups were small self-selected groups of enthusiasts. They often saw their work as being ‘on behalf’ of the community. Sometimes they felt appreciated and supported by the wider community: We’ve had several public meetings, which were well attended, 1200 signatures, good response to survey of what people using it for. Cognisance was taken by Edinburgh council which refused the application but as so often it went to appeal [and the developers won]. [Colinton] At other times groups can feel quite cut off from the community. For example one group which was determined to go ahead despite opposition from others in their village: It’s no gonnae get resolved here. We will form an management group and will end up managing the wood as a set of private individuals. All it takes is one or two that are anti, and it puts the seeds of doubt into others. 3.2
Anti-social behaviour
Anti-social behaviour was described by several interviewees. This ranged from groups of young people experienced by others as threatening, to well-off residents guilty of dumping in the woods. The woods used to be a no go area, was quite antisocial, it was a generational thing, for years and years and years teenagers just went there and made a nuisance of themselves. Now we’ve cleared the rhoddies, and touch wood we have no trouble, nobody hanging around in the woods. The fly tipping thing: we had to get wardens to leaflet every house, to say enough’s enough, arranged a skip and from now on this is not your property and you will be prosecuted. It’s just depressing that especially in the summer you’ll be away to clear stuff for an action day and you had to abandon that because someone has dumped a whole pile of stuff in the woods. There was a bit of conflict, one or two difficult characters who made life really difficult. We dealt with it by not engaging too much!
Many described ‘outbreaks of vandalism and thieving’ or people breaking branches and trees, as almost incidental – they seemed to feel this was part of what had to be dealt with. One group found that problems with anti-social behaviour had ‘brought everyone together, police, schools’ and had catalyzed a team spirit. 3.3
Neighbours
The higher pressure on land use, and population density, in this part of Scotland, can translate into more tensions with neighbours of the community woodland, compared with other parts of Scotland. We’ve had people who’ve built extensions that are south facing and gone, ‘Oh we’ve got no light’, and chopped down everything on the other side of the fence [in the woodland]. We have had one or two instances of less than helpful neighbours who chuck rubbish on the land, cut trees down because it spoils the view ... Extremely irritating but we can ride with those. Neighbouring homeowners don’t like us. We’ve heard lots of conspiracy theories about high-rise building, Paintball schemes … one of them sued us when we put in an improved path, because they claimed it would improve access of thieves. We’ve had one or two cases where trees have been poisoned. A couple of years ago, there is a gap in the avenue because one person objected, he didn’t like leaves on his caravan. So we left a gap. 3.4
Inclusivity and social capital
Several pointed out that the more deprived areas lacked organisational infrastructure: There’s no community council here. We probably have less people to call on. And less professional skills and influence, civic awareness. This is a bunch of people who can be quite angry at society already. I was having to tell them ‘I’m going to have to let you down again’. The social capital was strong, there was swimming, gardening, but it has all fallen to pieces, we’ve had dumping of problem families. It’s a place that has fallen behind, social capital has retreated, pubs, bowling greens, miners’ welfare, football teams, churches - they are dying. Even ‘volunteering’ has negative connotations, we are confused with community payback. Perhaps as a result, in some of the more deprived areas, groups seemed to be led by (less typical) retired educated people, or struggled to include local residents. Others highlighted more of a mixture. Our Board of Directors has shrunk to three, and does not include anybody from the local village. We’re a mixed group, we are not all educated! We definitely have a real mix. We are not in the posher part of [the suburb]! Of all the nicer houses, that all back on to the wood, we only have two volunteers. And there are 100+ houses that back on to the wood. Probably have 20-30 that (used to) fly tip. A lot are from the suburbs, average household. We work with groups with mental health difficulties. We are here, we cope with that situation. Social turnover had mixed reactions: We are incomers into the area … it is quite cliquey … we’ve been here seven years. My wife found it relatively difficult to get involved, activities don’t get widely advertised. There is new housing and new families. Since we put the play area in that has brought a whole new group. Before that it was the dog walkers and they don’t want the place disturbed. We have a lot more families now and I see a lot more people walking to the park. Some incomers (whether from other parts of Scotland or further afield) commented that ‘the locals’ felt that society owed them, and expected the council to provide: They see the park as something that the council should look after for them.
It is changing but when we started the local community weren’t particularly on board. Being exmining, they have this mentality that everyone owes them something because we have a whole generation in the village that have a perceived loss of a job. As well as this culture of expectation, there was sometimes opposition to new proposals: About seven households in the village said: “No we don’t want mental health [groups]”. It was the people that killed the project. It was total prejudice against [mental health]. I said: “Every one of yous suffers from mental health, depression and anxiety, but you don’t admit it!” 4
4.1
COMMUNITY ORGANISATION
Types of organisation
Many but not all of the groups were constituted, and took a range of legal forms. Interviewees didn’t always find it easy to describe the form of their organisations: We are not a charity … I’m not sure … we are an umbrella thing. We have nothing in black and white but we are definitely moving towards a formal somethingor-other. Several groups had been through change in legal form, and described the decisions and processes as complicated – legally and socially: The group was talking officially about taking over the ownership. Then last year we suddenly heard that the community council was thinking of forming a CIC, and the ownership would be transferred to the CIC. That accelerated our thoughts into looking seriously into how we could take ownership in our own hands. We have set up a subsidiary and repurposed the CIC to take on the lease; the charity will buy the flax mill, and lease to the CIC. Several interviewees felt that key individuals were more important than the organisational form: The person who started it is no longer around. She started the group and got loads of funding from loads of places … but she departed and I think we are floundering. I feel we have lost our direction, stumbling along doing bits and pieces, not actually getting anywhere. There is nobody in the group who has the drive and the impetus to get things off the ground and get things going. I enjoy it though, it’s quite sociable. We have something like 500 members. We have a very strong committee, about 12 of us, we are very committed and do a lot to push the council. 4.2
Volunteers
Interviewees talked about volunteers, and the associated challenges, in two ways. One was the challenge (and rewards) of getting people out to help. They found numbers to be small and turnout often unpredictable. There is still a feeling within the group that there should and could be more people helping out. You get 150 to events, quite a lot of people use the wood, but we have an action day and a big piece of work, and 4-5 people turn up and we have to cancel. It gets frustrating. We have been able to mobilise a few volunteers for our year-round work. However, getting people involved in outdoor work is not the easiest, especially given the nature of the area We have attracted a couple of young people, one has been in the village for a couple of years and really likes the park, another was on unemployment training. Things are changing but because of the area it’s very slow. Another issue is shared vision and values within the community group: You think at the start that everyone has the same ideas, and then you discover that some people have very different ideas. So one of the things right at the beginning when we got the land was,
several people were very enthusiastic to keep livestock on it … one of the trustees wants to get rid of all the brambles. So it’s clearly not the case that we are all coming from the same place. 4.3
Sustainability
Interviewees expressed worries both about maintaining volunteer interest and numbers, and about succession in the longer term. There is a sense of inertia … “yes we enjoy walking through the woods, say hello to the people hacking through the ivy”. To a certain extent it is about profile. We haven’t been that active. We are a small group of volunteers. I have got myself volunteered. We have lost a lot of volunteers over the last year or 18 months – that’s just the nature of volunteering. It always seems to be the same people who come out of the woodwork. The same people at different meetings involved in same things. Sometimes this leads to overextending the group and its capacity: It depends a lot on the capacity of the community to follow it through. For example we have a hub of our own in town, we’d spent a lot of money but wevhad to hand it back because we can’t interest funders in transformation. I left because of burnout … I’m very passionate about the park. This affected some groups’ attitude to ownership, and whether this was a sensible option when it wasn’t clear who would be taking over from the current small and ageing group of volunteers and trustees. We are in quite a vulnerable position. There are only five of us, we have been living hand to mouth reasonably successfully, we think we probably punch above our weight but we are living on borrowed time with the volunteers we have. The 2017 survey of community woodland groups conducted by CSGN also highlighted concerns with ageing and the heavy physical work required in community land management. 5
5.1
LAND AVAILABILITY AND TENURE
Finding land
If communities are to buy, lease or manage land they must engage with the current landowner. Some interviewees from agencies said it was difficult to find land: In the central core area it is difficult to find bits of land. Everybody who has a piece of land has it for hope value, and the price is high because of development potential. Private owners aren’t keen to see them go under trees. Community groups did not describe a search for land in this way. In most cases they were responding to a situation – often land that they felt had been neglected. So they were starting with the land, and moving from that to engage with the landowner and explore tenure options. However it is sometimes difficult to identify the owners: We’ve had various maps sent to us … we now have the council pursuing title deed search. We’ve had extreme difficulty finding out who owns bits of what we are trying to develop. It’s just assumed that it’s public whereas it’s not actually. Other studies have shown that councils are often unaware of the extent of their resource6, not having up to date records of their ownership, and at times being unaware of derelict land changing ownership. 6
CSGNT. The 2010 Baseline. Available at: http://www.centralscotlandgreennetwork.org/resources/monitoringevaluation/2010-baseline. Central Scotland Green Network Trust 2011. 18 pp.
5.2
A spectrum of tenure options
This study was prompted by the question, ‘Why do community groups not buy more land for community woodlands?’ It subsequently broadened out to consider the full range of constraints to communities setting out to manage land in the CSGN area. It is worth considering where ownership sits, on the spectrum of options available to community groups. Typically this might be described as ranging from relatively passive involvement (e.g. voluntary groups carrying out work on local authority land, under local authority direction), through management agreements to leasing and, in some cases, full ownership. This research identified a wider range of options, summarised in Table 1. Table 1. Tenure types described by interviewees Type
Owner*
Notes
guerrilla tree planting
LP
I.e. planting without the landowners’ permission. Examples on both public and private land were described in this study.
‘friends of’ groups
L
Established either at the initiative of the local authority, or as a result of local pressure and protest, to liaise with and support the local authority on the management of a particular park or woodland – may have no more than advisory role.
licence to occupy
L
Used by some councils in this study. ‘The key difference between a lease and a licence is that a licence does not entail exclusive occupation of the land. Licences are simpler documents than leases (they are not governed by particular legislation) and can be useful when access is needed to a site to carry out a particular activity.’7
letter of permission
P
A rather limited type of agreement with a private landowner, allowing specific activities.
management agreement
LP
With private or public owners.
leasehold
L
All examples identified in this study were from local authorities, often at ‘peppercorn’ rent.
ownership
C
Most examples of land owned by community groups identified in this study, were given to groups by developers or (more historically) philanthropists.
*community (C) public (L) private (P)
and: van der Jagt A, Lawrence A. (2014) Trees and Woods in Scottish Towns: the role of Local Authorities. Forest Research, Roslin, Midlothian. Available at www.researchgate.net/publication/279911598_Trees_and_Woods_in_Scottish_Towns_The_role_of_local_authorities 7 Swade K. Guidance on Assets & Ownership for Woodland Social Enterprises. Literature review. Shared Assets report commissioned by Making Local Woods Work. . 2017. p. 10.
5.3
Attitudes to different options
Very few of the groups interviewed, own the land where they conduct their activities. However many had thought about the options, and were actively considering a change of tenure. They highlighted that this is not a process to rush, and that there are pros and cons to ownership: Yes! There is appetite to own the woods. We have lots of houses backing on to the woods, we are concerned that someone [else] might want to buy the woods. We have an interest in obtaining either formal lease or even ownership of land where planting has occurred and may try to pursue this in the near future. We’ve had various discussions with the community council. We are more than happy and have indicated to the community council that we could take over ownership. We are thinking long-term lease. 50-100 yrs. I think community-right-to-buy is too big a thing. I’m not saying they wouldn’t … it may be they offer it to us. We want the lease option because we can put our feet in the water, test it make a decision, based on experience of running the woods. We are at a crossroads – but yes, we will go for ownership. My only concern is that we need to have a succession plan, it sounds too grandiose but we need to recruit others. 5.4
Reasons not to own land
Others were not interested in changing to ownership, for reasons which included: 1. concerns about longevity of the group and succession I’m a bit agnostic about this but the majority feel similar to me, sometimes yes and sometimes no. There are big risks about the need to keep the effort going and concerns that once our generation moves on, are we going to be able to find people who will take it on afterwards? We have been through all the sums and looked at things very closely and very carefully. We are not going to take a leap into the dark. But the question really is: ‘is there any longevity in what we do?’ Will the community commit? If we thought they would, we would buy straight away. 2. existing positive relationship with owner We currently have no desire to own the woodland and have not even considered seeking a lease arrangement. When Local Nature Reserve status is gained we would expect to have some consultation in the preparation of the woodland management plan. In light of this our small Group is content to await this positive change in status. We have not so far considering buying land. We haven’t needed to. We are focusing on restoration work with council and private land. 3. concerns about the liabilities of ownership We are completely of the view that owning equals legal liabilities. The enterprise doesn’t want to own the woodland because of the liability. 4. lack of [confidence in] the group’s knowledge and skills We didn’t want to buy the park. The option was there but the management ... it’s no practical. It’s something that the council do a lot better with a wee bit of pressure. It’s not just buying a woodland. It’s all the intricacies of security, looking after buildings. As an individual group, we feel we don’t have the expertise to expertise to run the woodlands. 5. avoiding repetition of previous negative experiences We already have a licence to occupy. Even that was a long drawn out process.
5.5
More on particular forms of tenure
5.5.1
Guerrilla management
Two groups described their activities with the phrase ‘guerrilla’ or ‘guerrilla planting’, an adaptation of the term ‘guerrilla gardening’ which can refer to unauthorised beautification of public areas, or have a more political connotation. Those using it here, clarified that they meant ‘planting without permission’. There were two main reasons for this – either the owner could not be identified; or the council was not keen to approve: We have planted without permission because land ownership has proved very difficult to ascertain. We are fairly confident no development will eventuate, but it is a risk. We were using the land informally. Everything we’ve done is guerrilla. It still is, because we still don’t have formal written permission; but because the council wants more outdoor learning what we’re doing fits with what they want. In one case the group’s activities have translated into prolonged and high profile confrontation, currently moving towards resolution; nevertheless they viewed their activities positively: We just started and kept doing stuff, our view was because it was all with a positive social aim there is not much that could get us into trouble. In another case, the council seemed resigned to the outcome: We’ve done other guerrilla planting and they have generally expressed disappointment with that, because it affects their grass-cutting schedules. 5.5.2 Management agreements This type of tenure is common. It is not the committed ‘ownership’ that this report was seeking to explore, but some management agreements provide considerable autonomy to the group: The management group will go ahead. The opencast mine company will do a management transfer agreement. We will take over management on a commercial basis. 5.5.3 Leasehold Several groups were leasing woodland, or saw that as their preferred tenure form: At beginning [the council] were keen to do a one year renewable lease. I think that was partly to protect themselves, partly because they weren’t sure about us, how long we would be as a community group. Now they have expressed a strong preference for us to take a long lease. We are in the process of applying for WIAT status which means getting a lease, instead of permission to use. 5.5.4 Ownership The majority of woodlands which were owned by the groups interviewed here, had come into their possession because they had been donated by property developers (about which see below). It is interesting that there were no cases of woodland bought from local authorities, as yet. Reasons for this may include the relatively new process, and challenges experiences, of community asset transfer8 under the Community Empowerment Act (see next section). Reasons not to own are listed above (section 5.4), but we note here again that the prospect of ownership is in many ways seen as daunting: We have been offered community asset transfer, but I have to say that the process of getting the community on board again, and starting to rabble rouse, to get everyone motivated again, is something we are thinking seriously about. The problem is whether we as a community are prepared to take it on, I am 72, I might be good to go for another three years. That is the sixtyfour thousand dollar question - the community commitment. 8
McMorran R, Lawrence A, Glass J, Hollingdale J, McKee A, Campbell D, Colme M (2018). Review of the effectiveness of current community ownership mechanisms and of options for supporting the expansion of community ownership in Scotland. Scottish Land Commission, Commissioned Report. 2018. 91 pp.
5.6
Awareness and interest in land reform legislation
Amongst the 19 groups interviewed here, one had acquired a lease through Community Asset Transfer, one was considering it, while others had considered negotiated purchase. None was considering Community Right to Buy from private landowners (although some mentioned it in passing). Others were not aware of the Community Empowerment Act. We will probably get some sort of asset transfer. It’s just previously we’ve been rejected. We’ve not done the formal community application. But in our informal application they were giving us all the arguments for why we wouldn’t get the land. That was 2016 before we’d succeeded at the public hearing. Since then the education department have recommended we do apply for Community Asset Transfer. So is the CEA a step change in what is possible? No, because it could be extra headaches. But it would ascertain tenure and subsequent use and will enable us to get additional funding. The council haven’t been particularly forthcoming, haven’t’ suggested asset transfer, it has been up to us to go to them. I don’t know, I don’t think so. The Community Empowerment Act is more of interest in rural areas … certainly the communities that we are working in they are so far away from wanting to own and manage land it is not on the radar. In a rural situation people might actually want to use the land for something, in the urban setting it is a totally different context. There was considerable confusion over what is currently possible. Two groups mentioned Community Right to Buy when referring to buying land from a public body, and several were unaware of the more relevant Community Empowerment Act, and the Scottish Land Fund which would help them to buy: We’d be interested in buying but I imagine we would be struggling to find the money. 6
LANDOWNERS
In the CSGN area, two types of landowner are particularly significant: local authorities, and ‘developers’ converting green- or brownfield sites into housing developments. 6.1
Local authorities
The councils were identified as key players in most cases – whether because of their role in planning or in owning the land in question. Community groups found that local authorities as landowners brought a number of complications. At least two groups reported that their woodland site was owned by more than one council (i.e. it sat on the boundary between local authority areas). There’s a further complication, part of the wood is owned by council A, who have an agreement with council B who manages them. Some groups also found that the council was hazy about what they owned: Even the council doesn’t know what they own. There’s a plot of land behind the library interested in planting, couldn’t determine which department owned it. There is widespread concern that councils want to sell land for development. Sometimes land comes with specific conditions attached, which prevent this: This park was gifted to the town by [a local landowning family]. The gift was covered by a conservation agreement with an NGO; if not, I suspect the council would have sold the whole area for redevelopment. They looked at whether they could get round the conservation condition, and they can’t. In several cases, where a community group took the initiative to care for or develop land, this brought it to the local authority’s attention and the land was then offered to developers for housing. The Village Association asked for permission to turn the land into a garden. The Council refused and announced that it would be sold for housing development.
Groups found that local authorities were sometimes more willing for them to take on less attractive land: In our case they are quite happy to hand it over! It is post-industrial contaminated land and quite boggy. 6.2
Tenure relations with local authorities
Looking at the relationship between community groups and local authorities, management agreements are more common than through leases, in turn more common than transfer of ownership (although this may be changing – see Section 5.6). In many cases, groups preferred to develop ‘Friends of’ groups, and management agreements. Sometimes these management agreements were worked out in a collaborative partnership, with the community group taking a confident lead: The site is just opposite the second largest brand new secondary college in Scotland. So we came forward with a proposal, providing £48000 to regenerate the woodland, create batboxes, bogs, garden. We arranged the majority [of the funding], the council had to chip in 15-20%. It was bigger than their usual projects, and we contracted their Parks people to produce a plan of the area. In one case the local authority had selected the community group (an NGO) to develop the partnership: So we are in a different position from most community groups, there is no other competition for woodland area – we were selected, we are in partnership with the council. Sometimes agreements resulted from a more adversarial process: The Council didn’t have the money and because nobody was shouting, any money they did have they were spending somewhere else. We got in contact with one of the local councillors and we raised awareness through public events, Easter egg hunts, trying to get the park used … Some groups reported that management agreements were becoming more difficult: We can’t do anything without council input and we find that more and more they are being quite restrictive…. In the past the bat conservation people would just have been able to come into the park and do their bit, but they are now being asked to draw up a licence to occupy, H&S, insurance, being told: “you will do this, you will not do that”. This is scaring people away. A lot of groups really don’t want to go through the administrative hassle. These pressures are pushing community groups, and the local authorities, to favour leaseholds: We will lease it from them. That was the council’s intent, because otherwise they remain responsible for the maintenance. They effectively have pulled out several years ago which is why the site is overgrown! Groups who are leasing have mixed experiences of the local authority as landlord: We are in a nice position - we’ve got a council who we can trust for the time-being to be a reasonably good landlord. To be frank the legal team in our council is not up to the mark, they hadn’t done [a community woodland lease] before, it was utter nonsense, like a lease for someone renting a house. We went back and said this is not right. Groups which had actually taken ownership from a local authority were few. Groups were often not interested (as discussed in the ‘Tenure’ section above); and local authorities also were described as reluctant: We have mentioned ownership to the council, and they said no at the time. Some described the process as challenging even where the council was, in principle, willing and
supportive. This has been covered in much greater depth in a forthcoming report.9 6.3
Developers
As discussed in the motivations section above, the perceived threat of housing development is a significant driver of community action. We thought about [buying the woodland] to try and prevent more house building because there has been a lot of building in this area, you know farmers selling off land to developers. A lot of local people object to that, they feel the woodlands are being eroded because of the building. Sometimes community groups benefit from a section 75 agreement10 (now known as Planning Obligations) between a developer and a local planning authority about measures that the developer must take to reduce their impact on the community. One such group discovered that the benefits were elusive: the developer challenged the agreement, and benefits were limited to a five year period. Another city-based group was successful in obtaining an endowment fund.11 Other groups have been formed to make use of the leftovers that developers have not wanted. One group in an which has seen enormous housing development in recent decades, reported: The village grew as a commuter village for Edinburgh, and we now have a total population of 15000. After the major part of housebuilding had ceased, one of the developers decided there were four plots of land he didn’t want and offered to the Council, who ran a mile and said it was perfect for a community group, so the community council took it over. Local authorities and developers are sometimes linked in situations which prompt a community response. One well-publicised case in Glasgow has resulted from the council’s plans to sell land for housing: It’s a long running battle which has been going on for 20 years; they want to build high end housing, which would completely put people out of the market and take away the whole space. We were trying to show this space is good for everybody. When a planning application for housing was submitted, we put in a counter application for a community park and garden. Both went to planning committee on the same day. And both got planning permission – but we didn’t know there was an agreement between the council and the builders that if they got planning permission they would get the land. We challenged it, said we couldn’t get like for like, the Reporter came out and saw it, came out on our side, said what we were doing couldn’t be replaced. Two groups reported that their local authorities had been unwilling to take on small areas of land offered by developers, and that these were subsequently taken over by community councils. When the council gave the green light to build 130+ homes, to soften the decision the developers offered a small community facility to the council, who declined, not wishing to take on the financial commitment of running or maintaining such a facility. The community council was extremely disappointed with this decision, and in discussion with the developers they were offered the facility.12 A key advantage in these situations is that the community clearly owns the resulting land. The developer is ‘donating’ the land to the community, whether willingly or under pressure. Some reported a long stressful process of negotiation, often characterised by stress and mistrust: The negotiations took ten years due to successful attempts of the developer to stall transfer of 9
McMorran R, Lawrence A, Glass J, Hollingdale J, McKee A, Campbell D, Colme M (2018). Review of the effectiveness of current community ownership mechanisms and of options for supporting the expansion of community ownership in Scotland. Scottish Land Commission, Commissioned Report. 2018. 91 pp. 10 Section 75 agreements are intended to make a development possible, by obtaining concessions and contributions from the developer. Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997. 11 See Dunbar Community Woodland case study at http://www.communitywoods.org/resources-details.php?id=7. 12 A Section 75 type agreement was drawn up in 2008, and funds were released in Feb 2018 with the occupation of the fiftieth home. So the community group had to wait 10 years to implement their plans.
ownership – they wanted to keep the opportunity of installing new utilities and/or services if required. The local developer just does what the heck he likes. He’ll pay the fine afterwards. We find we have to work in conjunction with them as well, we don’t want to get completely on their wrong side. We did put in strong objections to the development that has been built very recently, so much so that the developer had to take it to the highest authority. For others, engaging with developers was a positive experience: We have found that most developers are pretty good, they want to be seen to be adding value in the community they are building homes in and if you approach them about engaging and working with the community and community council then they will usually respond positively. More challenging is the situation where groups want to buy land to save it from development. In these cases groups were often unsuccessful, with resulting disappointment: It would have been better if we’d bought it. As usual with developers, the scheme which originally started with 55 houses, they then got permission to increase the number of houses to 77, it has no architectural merit, doesn’t reflect the architectural heritage of the area. 240 people objected to an application. The planning department were going nuts, they’ve never had anything like that before but it’s going ahead, the objections were not [deemed to be] valid reasons. They have already sold part of the wood to developers, that was a massive battle that we fought and lost and the field has been built on. 6.4
Private landowners
Other than housing developers few of the woodlands were owned privately. In one case, the land was bought by a member of the group, who has set up a social enterprise as a vehicle to receive grants, generate income and deliver services, and that social enterprise now employs the owner of the wood. Another group has a management agreement with a large traditional estate, and a third with a local farmer. For some, this is mutually beneficial: The farmer is only really thinking of himself but by giving us the power to manage these woodland paths it’s great for him, we are doing him a favour at the same time as he is doing us a favour. For others, conflicting land uses have limited their activities: The tenant farmer was seeking a government subsidy which required the land to be unplanted, the [landowner’s] agent came out and was a bit apologetic but said we had to dig our trees up. 7
PROCESS OF ACQUIRING OWNERSHIP OR LEASE
This section focuses on the experience of forming, or trying to form, a community woodland group. Sometimes this is about constituting, and the paperwork involved; sometimes it is about running a campaign to try to prevent alternative use of the site; sometimes it is about community engagement. 7.1
Constituting
Most groups found the process of setting up a constitution, arduous and tedious. Some had done this more than once, moving from informal to formal organisation; or having decided to change from being a CLG to being a SCIO. The process is no straightforward. Setting up the constitution can be complex. The paperwork involved is horrendous, Oh my god it took me almost a year. Every time I submitted it would
come back with something else to be changed. I was dealing with three or four people. A lot of folk would fall at the first hurdle. It’s the paperwork and the legalese. If the Scottish Government is serious about empowerment then we need the flexibility for community councils to do as little or as much as they want as it’s not prescriptive – one size does not fit all. We’ve had difficulties along the line, we are probably not atypical … although the constitution has not been a problem, it has taken a lot of work to get there. We started as an informal association, and right from the beginning I was uncomfortable because I was the one had to sign all the leases and agreements, and I felt very exposed actually. But it took us a few years to decide what was the best route for us, and in the end we decided to go for an SCIO. Several had found the SCIO formation process particularly challenging: It is a headache, a nightmare. For example they told us to limit our choices [objectives] to two or three. It needs to be spot-on. It’s a legal document. Ours was 18 pages long. There is a mismatch between their allowed aims and … standard charitable objectives – we had to try to shoehorn ourselves into those. So we had ‘objectives’ and then our own – we needed something in clear English rather than the administrative English that OSCR13 uses. It took us a long time to realise that OSCR was not going to change, we had to fit in with the wording. So it doesn’t specifically reflect what we do but it will encompass it. We always had a constitution even when we were informal; and the constitution was a lot more straightforward, three pages rather than 25!!! The study identified three groups that had had to revise their constitutions more than once, in order to attempt to acquire land. It appears that those providing the legal advice on constitutions may not always be getting it right, and / or that the implications of adopting one option, and closing the door on other options, are not always clear to the groups. I’m not sure that there is any constitution that will do everything. In order to become a SCIO you have to forgo some of the flexibility … if we do fundraising we have to check that we are not going down the line of becoming too commercial and not enough charitable. 7.2
Paperwork
Among discouraging factors mentioned by groups, bureaucracy and paperwork is a prominent theme: It can make people feel inadequate yes ….there is a real risk that it drains the time and energy of people who could be doing a lot more. I was out today, planting five fruit trees, that’s what I like doing but as a volunteer I have to be in at the computer the rest of the day. I go home at night, I spend all night every night sending emails contacting other people in the group, setting up meetings, liaising with [another volunteer] so she could do the paperwork … It’s difficult a lot of hoops to jump through. But if you know the direction and the hoops you have to jump through, you can aim for them. If you don’t know, [it’s much worse]. 7.3 Building evidence In some of the more difficult cases, a key part of the process of gaining tenure was accumulating the evidence to make a legal case, or to challenge planning applications, or to demonstrate support and access funding. It’s an incredibly stressful process, because you never knew when they would put things in formally. It went to committee and took another 4-5 years. While we were constantly trying to create a voluntary basis, at the same time we had to keep an eye on the council, and make sure 13
The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator - the independent regulator and registrar of Scottish charities
the space was correctly zoned as open space not housing. People with stressful lives came to speak at the public hearing The third application was turned down but appealed and went to public inquiry. The community spent lot of effort preparing surveys. So we thought we had a good case to present to the Reporter. But the Council had a shortfall on its housing targets. So the appeal won and in the end the site was bought for £20 million. The council said was the park wasn’t getting used so wouldn’t spend the money. So we organised public events, Easter egg hunt, trying to get the park used – then we could prove ‘On this day there were 200 people, on this day 400’ etc. etc. At no point when I took on this journey did anyone tell me how difficult the process would be. … Asking me to submit documents to go to panels … we would wait then they would come back and say ‘you didn’t submit XYZ’ but they never asked for that in the first place. 7.4
Time and energy dissipation
Many groups reported exhaustion and demoralised feelings as processes, or attempted processes, wore on: The process has ground to a halt; the person in charge [on the seller’s side] has left. There has been a lack of response since last Nov. There was a horrendous amount of work, meetings … I’m self employed so I can take time off but it did involve substantial time off. If something goes wrong, because you’re part of a committee, at the end of the day the Chairman’s hit. So at the end of the day I stepped down. It was burnout. Everyone said you are definitely going to get this, it is just a matter of time. But because of the time they have missed out on the growing season. It’s a bunch of people who can be quite angry at society already and you have to keep them on board for a year. We have been waiting for about 6 months for a response to a proposal to [a government department]. We got a response yesterday. Basically they haven’t moved forward a lot. They have got their own views. I do not expect them to move quickly on this. I think we are probably looking at the next 6 months. 7.5 Relationships Several interviewees highlighted the importance of building relationships with key people especially in the local authority: We are in the nice position of having a council who have policy and practice, we can trust them for the time-being to be a reasonably good landlord. We’ve never had anything but support from the council and the local greenspace manager. If you are taking over something from the council, you need a very supportive council officer. That has certainly been the case with us. Both the councillors and officers are very supportive. Several groups found it challenging to deal with several different Council departments, and found themselves caught between supportive and unsupportive officers: People report variations within the council – some are helpful and others are not, so it’s important to find allies. The main thing is finding the right person at the council to talk to. We have a really good relationship with the development team, it was the maintenance team that was difficult. I had a good relationship with … the park manager, but the role was split in two and the other manager we didn’t have that relationship. I also had a councillor who wasnae really on our side, wanted to do things on her own, she had the power at the time. We had been planning for a while, all of a sudden things changed when somebody else came on
board at the council, they didn’t have the same thoughts as he did. We were back to square one, “no no, you can’t do that.” The frustration! you think you are getting somewhere and then the council changes tack on what they want to do. Sometimes this involves understanding the dynamics between councillors and officers: She had canvased for our local councillor and he was later elected Council Leader. The Executive still insisted that they would sell the land. After many, fruitless heated meetings she appealed to the councillor one more time and he went to the Chief Executive and insisted that she overrule her executives and support the villagers. She did! So the garden was opened in 2016. 7.6
Conflict
Conflict arises in the course of community engagement, whether among members or between members and other stakeholders: Someone [on another site] got taken to court for putting up bat boxes and raised beds. But they had cleared up the land and made it safe! They are talking to us which they wouldn’t do before. They had tried previously, winding back a wee bit, after we’d succeeded at the public hearing , it all went quiet, then the planning department were on the land taking photos and the community got really stressed about this. I have a great working relationship with [the landfill company]. Initially it was a wee bit stilted because we had a really bad relationship with the former owners. But right up to senior management they have been approachable. Interviewees described various ways of working through conflict: The moral of the story seems to be that people respond to people and both in the decision and the later fundraising an awful lot of work went into building relationships with influencers on a one-to-one basis. In the end it’s difficult for a person to keep saying, "No!" to someone they trust, who’s sitting in front of them. The council wanted the group to get it, it’s just the management of the process. It’s one individual whose name is the contact. It’s asking too much of one person, if they want to focus they are going to need a couple of members of staff. 7.7 Experience of the Community Asset Transfer process As noted above few interviewees were familiar with the Community Empowerment Act 2015 or felt it was relevant. Two groups had some experience, and their comments reflect the way that the new legislation is still finding its feet: I have been to a few workshops over the last year about the empowerment act, what it is likely to mean for groups and communities, and there were people there from Estates, Land Services, from various groups within the council, and they were basically saying we don’t know anything about it, we are as much in the dark as you are, we will have to work through it together… but I thought it is not really giving you much confidence. The process itself isn’t too bad, it’s the correspondence. And getting no answer to phonecalls. We found out that we had an asset transfer because it was in the local paper! 8
RESOURCES
In order to achieve community tenure, groups needed a range of resources. This section summarises their comments. 8.1
Skills, knowledge and confidence
Shortage of confidence and experience was often highlighted, particularly in the post-industrial areas of central Scotland: [In this area we have] less professional skills and influence, civic awareness. I remember a little
place in [the wealthier area of] west Perthshire, you could look at the notice boards and see all the civic groups, woodland groups, all very active, minutes up there …it’s not like that here! Expertise is remarkably limited. People want the place cleaned up, better access, to walk the dog; trees are secondary. Bear in mind these are just members of the public, some haven’t worked for a while – and [to get a lease] they need to fill in a detailed form, include a business plan, and how you are going to fund it. Others pointed to the difficulty in finding directors, with suitable skills: We are interviewing a potential director. Really he is coming along to find up what we are up to. He has experience with commercial stuff, lettings, that is the sort of experience we need on the board. What we are missing is people with financial management skills, we had one, he resigned, we haven’t been able to replace him, there are retired accountants around but none have put their head above the parapet. We also need links with the local business community, one was a local entrepreneur, but resigned because he couldn’t give the time he felt it needed. It’s always difficult getting people to serve on the board of directors. We have [only] three at the moment. There is always that difficulty of finding people who are local, have the right skill set and time to devote. While some groups felt that they lacked financial management skills, one group that didn’t was led by a man who described his background as ‘I’m no university minded, I came from the school of hard knocks’. Because he had experience of running his own car mechanics business, he was able to keep things straight for the group – albeit at the cost of great personal stress: I was working with two lassies that didnae own a business and had no concept of how to work out VAT and how to make VAT happen, and we couldn’t reclaim VAT. So I had to help them find the VAT content of a bill. Those who agreed to be interviewed often felt that they had some of the missing skills, and carried an extra share of the work as a result: I’m a retired army officer. I’m used to bayonetting people and getting things done! Paperwork: that’s how I spend my time, it’s a burden, I don’t trust anyone else to do it! 8.2
Learning from other groups
A few interviewees described inspiration from visiting other groups: My wife and I are members of the horticultural society. We went to a meeting last autumn, in a dockyard area with significant deprivation. They have a urban farm, and a shop attached. It was fascinating. It is just down the road from a pretty prosperous community. I talked with the chap who started off [a nearby community garden], he said there was all sorts of issues, it actually took them nearly two years to get the lease drawn up. I thought ‘If he has been through this, has been a community councillor for years, he has a lot of clout locally, family in business, he is a smart cookie, if it has taken him two years to get that sorted out, we just need to learn from that and we’ll get there in the end.’ We had to muddle our way through it. It was ok later on when I started going to meetings and talking to people who had done similar things and they would point me to people to talk to. 8.3 Support Most groups mentioned some form of external help. Apart from the friendly contacts in the local authority, CSGN, the Community Woodland Association (CWA) and local networks such as Clyde and Avon Valley Landscape Partnership (CAVLP), and Edinburgh and Lothians Greenspace Trust (which had helped one group to develop a lease).
You need passion but you also need a bit of help. Without CAVLP and without CSGN and other people, we couldnae have got as far as we’ve got. Two groups had benefited from a UK-wide BIG lottery funded project called Making Local Woods Work, which provided support to develop social enterprise. This project’s approach was appreciated for its one-to-one support and low demand for paperwork. Of the groups accessing FCS as a source of advice, most were highly appreciative of the advice and encouragement given, while others had approached local offices and felt disappointed with the response. These experiences in part reflect confusion about the role of FCS in giving advice, and the effect of policy in targeting support on priority areas. Insurance is a common and widespread concern, and two groups mentioned appreciation for the approach taken by Highland Council which is also accessible to groups in other local authority areas: We were very lucky, we found a thing that Highland council had done, set up block insurance, would let friends groups pay into it. Covered our insurance needs. Went to our council but their insurance didn’t physically cover us for doing things in the park. Some pointed out the need to tailor advice to the experience of less confident groups: We need someone that can communicate at a lower level. Some of the people we talked to are very very intelligent, a lot of it went over our heads. [They are] lovely, fantastic but we’ve been bombarded with information and when you start reading you get overwhelmed very quickly. CWA was mentioned by most groups, and in a very positive light, both for the advice given and for the opportunities to link up with other groups and share experience: The amount of help that is around for people like us is enormous. Other groups mentioned support from Open Ground, New Caledonian Woodlands, EVOC [Edinburgh Voluntary Organisations’ Council]: EVOC gave us free advice on tenure options, we had 3-4 hours talking through the options with a solicitor. Great. 8.4
Funding
On balance, interviewees reported more need and appreciation for advice than for funding, with several reporting that there are lots of sources of funds for groups: There is so much money out there! what we need is targeted advice. Funding isn’t a huge problem, it’s more finding out where the money is; we have managed to find the best part of 40k for path improvement…. One local engineering company gave us a nice donation, but also quite big companies. Others (especially those looking for significant funds) have had more difficult experiences: The wall is always money. Just when you think you’ve cracked it. Some funders have been frankly a nightmare because we had to rewrite the application for the campsite seven times; we needed to put in a field drainage system, needed three tenders, they said they would accept the lowest, but the time it took to get the whole thing approved, the contractor who put in the lowest bid is now too busy. In addition to the big funds, groups are constantly looking for small amounts of funding: We know we have trees that need attendance in the next five years – that will cost £1000-3000 a go. Groups need to think about the maintenance costs. It is easier to get things built than to maintain them. And you always underestimate what running costs are going to be. It’s not materials, it’s things like fuel, machines and labour. For others, they are seeking large amounts to support project development. We got £10k but we couldn’t spend it because the asset hadn’t been signed off. So now we need
to spend all the money before the end of May. Purchase often involves unexpected costs:14 We would have to pay ours and the council’s legal fees in drawing up the lease. Because they wouldn’t be able to use the standard one. That will cost £1-2000. That’s quite a lot. Those with less secure tenure find that it does affect funding: It’s the funders who don’t all find this convincing. We are at loggerheads with [one funder] who need [us to have] at least a 50 years lease. We can’t get that out of the council. Other funders find the letter from [the private estate] sufficient. Due to tenure limitations we cannot get support from Forestry Commission schemes even though this area, which has high deprivation, would be a prime candidate. [Because of the management agreement], we cannot charge a third party organisation to use the site for events; it would be helpful if we could charge. Ultimately some groups would like to move away from repeatedly applying for funds. Some questioned why they should do this on behalf of local authority property: We are doing all this work and also having to pay / find funds to cover the annual insurance costs, why shouldn’t they [the council] be covering them. We get a grant from the council every year but we still have to apply for it, jump through hoops, there are no guarantees and we can’t really say it is for insurance so we exaggerate the events costs. A small number were aiming to attract income to support their management of the woods, through some form of social enterprise. The holy grail is to get where we can generate the income and don’t rely on grant income and applications. There are lots of other things we are doing because we need to be able to create income out of the park. The path network won’t do it - it belongs to the public so we can’t charge. We are thinking café and hostel. Artists’ studios. Campsite. It will effectively become a community hub, attract people off the [long distance footpath]. 9
OUTCOMES
This study was commissioned to focus on constraints to ownership. The different forms of tenure bring possibilities of different outcomes, and although not a main focus of the study, those mentioned by interviewees are summarised here. Increased recreational use is a common outcome: The proof of the pudding is, I used to see 2 dog walkers, now I see 100 dog walkers when I’m working, and the paths now need a lot more maintenance! Everyone has felt that the community ownership of the field has been a really good thing and has delivered for the community and for the wider [city]. It’s a nice place to visit. As a council thing it would be less interesting. Some highlighted increased awareness - both of the wood and of the community: This wood had just been forgotten about. People have just went, ‘we didn’t know it existed’, they come in and go, ‘oh my word, there’s things in here are 100 years old’ [Benefits are] talking to people in the community, asking what would you like to see or encourage you to use the woods a lot more. Listening to people. And they’ve seen what we’ve done. Some results were low-key: We don’t necessarily see our work as a step change, we are just addressing an obvious limitation 14
Again, see McMorran et al cited above, for more detail and examples.
and threat to assure continuity and tree planting. While others felt the results were more dramatic (and had indeed attracted headlines): Out of adversity we have made lemonade out of lemons. What was a [neglected] tennis court is now a meadow, employing people, growing in what we do for the community, which is really nice without the stress of getting our event in the front page of the news so that people see how important we are. Tree planting is a common activity, most frequently to enhance existing woodland: We have focused native tree planting on three main areas of community woodland - coastal braes, former industrial land on the coast and regenerating a deteriorating remnant wood. In total we’ve planted numbers about 7-8000 native saplings, about 4000 fruit trees. Rarely, community ownership leads to new woodland establishment: It wasn’t a woodland but a field; the woodland was created by the community woodland group. [After 25 year as] it is now a mature woodland used by the community and is regularly visited by two primary schools and used as an educational experience. The woodland is maintained solely by volunteers. Several groups reported that they have been able to access funding not accessible to the local authority or private landowners; or simply that the amount of voluntary time put into fundraising has reaped rewards: We have raised significant funds to regenerate the area. Sometimes a group has formed to campaign and buy land, has been unsuccessful but the social capital has enabled them to go forward to do other work: It’s disappointing that we couldn’t buy the land and stop the housing development but some good came of it because the campaign morphed into [the local conservation trust] which has done good work and raised £200 000 for improvements within the conservation area. When groups develop a management role they are often seen by the local community, or users, as a replacement service for the council: People will report to us if a tree’s blown down, if they see something like someone’s dumped a dead sheep. These people could just as easily phone the council but they see that as our job because it was dumped in the woodland. It’s amazing the number of issues we get coming through the webpages, complaints from the public coming through the council. It’s frustrating because in a lot of ways I agree with what the public is saying and there is nothing we can do about it. 10 CONCLUSIONS
The study was commissioned to address three questions: • • •
What objectives are communities pursuing by getting involved in their woodlands? Why would some communities or individuals within communities not engage in their woodlands and greenspaces? What motivates these communities and individuals and what if anything would motivate more individuals to participate and engage in their community greenspace?
The sample of groups interviewed is mixed and includes those that have not been successful at fulfilling their vision for community land, those that are still working towards it, those who are actively considering change in tenure, and some with many years of experience and the ability to reflect on challenges along the way. Their experiences collectively suggest that groups are motivated particularly by a sense of scarcity and threat to their environment. The most common reason to initiate community woodland or greenspace groups, is to protect, save or revive a local space that is seen to be neglected, misused or
under threat of sale (particularly to property developers). This sense of being under siege from housebuilding is a particular feature of central Scotland and characterised many of the interviews. Groups also had proactive visions which they hoped could be fulfilled by community greenspace management: providing active healthy outdoor volunteering, meaningful work in retirement, and in a few cases, space for sustainable production of food (and rarely, wood products). Taken collectively, the interviews show clearly that constraints are related more to group members’ lack of confidence, skills, contacts and awareness of funding opportunities, than to a scarcity of land, or hostility and opposition for other members of the community. Nevertheless, anti-social behaviour, and adversity from neighbouring homeowners, are common experiences and wear down the enthusiasm and resilience of groups. It is not only the stereotypically intimidating groups of youths who are experienced as anti-social; more mature and better-off people create problems by fly-tipping, and cutting down community trees that obscure individuals’ views. Many described themselves as motivated and the experience as rewarding, but are worn down and sometimes burnt out, by what is often described as paperwork but is more often computer work. Woodland management for many involves more time at a desk than in the woods, in order to complete requirements to constitute, manage themselves, protect themselves (through inspections and insurance, for example) and constantly seek funding whether in large or small amounts. There are worries about sustainability, groups often being small, not typical of the community, and formed by retired and ageing individuals. The question of motivating more individuals to participate is harder to address, given the high levels of apathy reported. The starting place would be to support those who are interested, and may or may not have already made a start, but are daunted, discouraged, confused or exhausted. Guidance and support can be adapted to the reality of central Scotland by recognising the need for connection with the experience of others, and inspiration from success (for example through case studies). Compared with Highland communities, central Scotland communities have less experience in community asset management and rarely have development trusts and employed development officers, so can need more support with signposting to existing advice and funding opportunities. There are wide differences between the requirements of different funding agencies and trusts, and many could improve their accessibility by reducing the length and complexity of forms to be filled in. Although highly organised and motivated individuals may not feel they need to spend time in networking, the sense of connection and access to advice through membership of the Community Woodland Association is particularly helpful for those who see possibilities but are not sure how to implement them. The mixed experience with local authorities highlights the value of a single friendly informed point of contact in each local authority, who can support groups to find the most appropriate form of tenure and make best use of legislation, funding and support already available. To motivate more individuals to participate, however, these agencies and advisors would need to take a proactive approach to publicising opportunities and positive experiences of other community groups. Given the low confidence and skills shortages sometimes reported, there would be additional value in providing training in financial management, organisational management and fundraising – specifically tailored to group needs. Finally, the study highlighted the significant roles, both positive and negative, of property developers and builders. There seems to be considerable need, and scope, to consider these roles more comprehensively, and to build them in to guidance on planning, implementation of land reform and community empowerment legislation, and support to community groups. Both developers and community groups would benefit from a more consistent approach, reduced tension and worry, and a more strategic consideration of how community assets can be combined with new housing supply.
Acknowledgements This report was commissioned by Central Scotland Green Network Trust in partnership with Forestry Commission Scotland. Thanks to all the community group members who shared their experiences and opinions, staff of CSGNT and CWA for sharing ideas and contacts. Thanks to CSGNT and FCS for sharing work and steering the research.
APPENDIX 1
METHODS AND SAMPLE
A loose set of questions was based on the framework developed by Forest Research to describe community 15 woodland case studies . A. Group type: routes for forming a group, what formal type was chosen and why, how was that experience B. Woodland: what kind of woodland, what did you want it for, why did you think a community woodland would be the right approach C. Objectives – from environmental improvement, enjoyment and recreation, health and well-being, production of firewood / fruit / other produce. D. Land tenure: management agreement with landowner, rental and leasehold arrangements; owning. How did you get to where you are now and what difficulties did you experience or made you stop? E. Barriers – confidence, trust, awareness, examples / experience, time, skills, apathy, hostility (neighbours, boundaries), theft, insurance … F. Funding – awareness of funding available, sources, reasons to apply or not apply; experience of support for accessing funding; and interactions with / expectations of local authorities. G. Outcomes: what has been the result of this experience (for the group and for woodland)? What advice would you give others? To identify a sample, I combined a ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ approach by asking groups, and organisations which support groups to suggest contacts. I tried to contact those identified in CSGNT’s earlier community woodland survey, from a list of groups noted as ‘no longer active’. I advertised in CWA newsletter and Greenspace Scotland, and contacted all local authorities in the CSGN area. Collectively the response rate was very much lower than for comparable studies in other parts of Scotland or the wider UK. APPENDIX 2
ADDITIONAL DATA FROM CSGN SURVEYS
Additional data from two CSGN surveys were also analysed for trends relevant to this report: see the community woodland group survey, and local woodlands survey at http://www.centralscotlandgreennetwork.org/campaigns/community-woodlands. Motivating factors including protection of woods (particularly from new housing developments) – 4 responses to Q7 (what else should a community woodland focus on) and 4 responses to Q10 ‘Overall, is there anything else you would like to add?’ [see also Q30 in the Community Woodland Group survey which gives similar range of responses – protecting from development, and cleaning up neglected areas]. Of the 30 groups responding to the CWG survey: • 31% did not know which tenure category their land was held under • a further 14% indicated ‘other’ options for tenure, including guerrilla management, currently under change, license, MoU • 2 respondents didn’t know if the wood had a management plan, and of the 17 who knew that it did, nearly half (8) did not know if it had been approved by FCS. • 9 were not aware of community asset transfer rights etc. incorporated in the Community Empowerment Act. Of the 19 who were aware, 13 (48%) did not plan to progress to ownership; while 11 (41%) didn’t know. Only 3 did plan to. • More are members of The Conservation Volunteers than of Community Woodland Association.
15
Lawrence A, Ambrose-Oji B. A framework for sharing experiences of community woodland groups Forestry Commission Research Note. Edinburgh: Forestry Commission; 2013. p. 16.
Reasons not to proceed include (in notes to Q27): • rejected by SLF on basis of incorrectly written constitution • lack of capacity (time, members) • waiting to see if community is interested • current arrangements (with council or other owners) work well Messages from this include: low level of interest, but several ‘wait and sees’; and several ‘it’s already working fine’, implying that ownership is not always the answer, and that the decision to change may be a slow burn. Barriers (overcome or not) (Q31): • neighbours and boundaries (3) • lack of resources (time and volunteers) (3) • time taken to get the lease / grant / plan approval (2) • pressure / opposition from developers (2) • vandalism (2) • anti-social behaviour (drinking, drugs) (2) • communicating with members / supporters who use wide range of communication methods (1) • funding routine expenses such as insurance (1) • non-ownership (i.e. owned by local authority so can’t apply for certain funds) (1) • neglect and risk-aversion by local authority (1) • Don’t know how to manage trees / woods (1) This indicates a fair amount of hostility, targeted or not, and some conflicting interests (e.g. developers). Vandalism is listed by several who do not include it as a barrier [e.g. “I’ve been a member of a group which did not proceed because several members feared they would be dealing with vandalism”]. Some of these themes are reiterated in the responses to Q33. What do you see as holding you back at the moment? Theme in responses to Q33: No. of mentions Funding (mostly unspecified what funds are for; some for paths, trainers) 6 Apathy / lack of interest / support but no active volunteers (‘hard outdoor work in 5 deprived community’) Lack of time or support from Council staff (a mix of LA not doing what is in the MP, and 4 not supporting the CWG) Lack of time 4 Small size of group 3 Form of tenure: leasehold restricts freedom and precludes long term planning; or too 2 informal Theft and insufficient insurance – have lost important equipment for heavy work; Anti2 social behaviour Hostile neighbours, even legal battles 2 Lack of expertise 2 Volunteer fatigue: Excessive time demands of those on committee / board (and 2 reluctance of people to take this up) Lack of shelter or storage 2 Writing funding applications / People are put off by form filling! 2 Ineligible for support from Forestry Commission 1 Physical woodland management issues(paths) 1 Volunteers have work / family commitments and can’t take up training offers 1 Aging volunteers 1 Weather 1
