Join us for a discussion on Scottish Land Reform and the land reform agenda’s ties to community-led housing and community empowerment.

DESCRIPTION:  The session will include presentations from the Scottish Land Commission, Community Land Scotland, and Wigtown & Bladnoch Community Initiative, followed by Q&A. This one-hour webinar will provide a lively conversation on Land Reform and community ownership in Scotland (and beyond), with input from policy experts, community members, and community-led housing practitioners. Hosted by South of Scotland Community Housing and the Center for CLT Innovation. All are welcome!

The webinar will be presented in English. We will be adding translated subtitles to the webinar recording.

Moderated by Annabel Pidgeon of South of Scotland Community Housing.

PRESENTERS

• David Stewart is Senior Policy Officer at the Scottish Land Commission since 2019. His main areas of work are around land assembly, placemaking, and housing land markets. David joined the Land Commission from the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, where he led on new build affordable housing, planning reform, energy efficiency and regeneration. Before that, he worked for housing associations and for Edinburgh City Council on housing and regeneration. He is a board member of Rural Housing Scotland and was previously on the board of PAS, the planning and place charity, and a community based housing association in Greenock. David has also served on the Academic, Practice, and Policy Panel to SURF – Scotland’s Regeneration Forum. (link to slides)
• Linsay Chalmers is the Development Manager at Community Land Scotland, where she oversees the organisation’s work supporting communities and raising awareness of community landownership. She previously worked in community recycling and reuse for many years. In her spare time, Linsay is on the Committee of her local community enterprise which owns a shop, Post Office and self-catering business. (link to slides)
• Dr. Nick Walker is a retired psychiatrist, active in his local community. He was part of setting up Wigtown & Bladnoch Community Initiative, a community company whose mission is to bring neglected land and property into community ownership, in a sustainable way, to benefit and enhance the lives of the people living in and visiting Wigtown and Bladnoch. He has just finished his term as Board Convenor for the Initiative. He has also been on Wigtown Community Council and is a Trustee of local charity The Wigtown Festival Company which puts on an annual book festival in Scotland’s National Booktown. (link to slides)