Land Reform Bill Apr 2003 Update

The Land Reform (Scotland) Bill has now been passed and received royal assent, so will be know as the Land Reform (Scotland) Act. The text of the bill as passed is available from the Scottish Parliament website. The powers and duties of the Act will be introduced in 2004. The SCA along with various other organisation representing outdoor activities has been actively involved in lobbying on behalf og paddlers during the passage of the act. As a result the version of the Act which was passed is very good news for paddlers and much better than the draft bill orginally presented to the parliament.

The last area which needs to be resolved is the Scottish Outdoor Access Code which will be available for public consultation before it is finally drafted by Scottish Natural Heritage and put befure the parliament. This document will clearly outline what is and what is not responsible behaviour from both those taking access and land managers. There will be some difficult areas to be resolved. For example, how do we negotiate a way around farm buildings when we don't have access to them, and there is no obligation on landowners to provode altermative routes? Potentially there could be attempts to deny access on "privacy grounds" if passing close to a dwelling. Because access points to water are more fixed than those over land because there are fewer alternatives paddlers could run into particular problems. How the Code guides access over land and water outwith access rights is crucially important. Consultation on the Code will run from March to late June.