Who Owns Scotland?

A study into who owns Scotland's land and the impact that has on the people who live there is to be carried out by the new Scottish Land Commission(SLC).

It has been estimated that fewer than 500 people own half of all privately-owned land in Scotland.

That is one of the highest concentrations of land ownership in Europe.

SLC chief executive Hamish Trench said: "Scotland does have an unusually concentrated land ownership pattern."

There is no definitive list of who owns what in Scotland and that inevitably leads to questions about transparency. Malcolm Combe, a specialist in land law at the University of Aberdeen, said: "At the moment Scotland has a wholly unregulated land market, which means to say it doesn't really matter where you're from or where your company is based.

"Some people say that is absolutely fine and that allows for inward investment and this kind of thing. But there are some issues in terms of transparency and accountability."

Analysis by land reform campaigner and now Green MSP Andy Wightman has estimated that half of the privately-owned land is in the hands of 432 people.

Community Land Scotland policy director Peter Peacock said: "Scotland has got very, very unusual land ownership patterns with very few people owning vast amounts of land. That has big societal implications. It concentrates power in a few people's hands and it concentrates wealth."