For inform­a­tion

Title: Con­sulta­tion on com­puls­ory Pur­chase Reform in Scotland

Pre­pared by: Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place

Pur­pose

This paper is inten­ded to inform mem­bers of the Scot­tish Government’s con­sulta­tion on reform of the com­puls­ory pur­chase sys­tem in Scot­land, raise aware­ness of their poten­tial as tool to sup­port devel­op­ment or oth­er object­ives of the Park Author­ity and of the approach pro­posed by officers to respond­ing to the consultation.

Recom­mend­a­tion

The Com­mit­tee is asked to:

α) Note the con­sulta­tion and the poten­tial for the use of com­puls­ory pur­chase powers by the Park Author­ity and oth­er pub­lic bodies.

b) Note the approach pro­posed by officers to respond­ing to the consultation.

Back­ground and stra­tegic context

1. Com­puls­ory pur­chase is a tool giv­en to many pub­lic bod­ies to be used in the pub­lic interest. The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment recog­nises that it is poten­tially power­ful tool and that it is prob­ably under-used by pub­lic bod­ies, par­tic­u­larly in sup­port­ing devel­op­ment, in part because it has a com­plex and dated leg­al frame­work, with rel­ev­ant pro­vi­sions in Acts of 1845, 1947, 1963, 1973 and 1997.

2. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity has a very broad abil­ity to use com­puls­ory pur­chase powers in order to fur­ther its work but while it has invest­ig­ated the use of CPO’s at some points in the past in rela­tion to pro­posed or poten­tial devel­op­ments, it has not actu­ally used one to date. That is partly because the part­ners of the Park Author­ity such as loc­al author­it­ies also have com­puls­ory pur­chase powers and would be the most appro­pri­ate body to imple­ment them. It is worth not­ing that the pub­lic interest tests, and poten­tial fin­an­cial and repu­ta­tion­al implic­a­tions of com­puls­ory pur­chase would mean that the Board would be asked to approve decisions to imple­ment com­puls­ory pur­chase procedures.

3. The Gov­ern­ment is now con­sult­ing on pro­pos­als to mod­ern­ise the com­puls­ory pur­chase sys­tem to make it more effect­ive and sim­pler for pub­lic bod­ies to use as well as fairer and more trans­par­ent for people affected by it. The full con­sulta­tion doc­u­ment is avail­able at https://www.gov.scot/publications/compulsory-purchase-reform-scotland-consultation-paper/. They plan a Com­puls­ory Pur­chase Bill for the next Par­lia­ment after May 2026.

The con­sulta­tion and pro­posed response

1. The con­sulta­tion doc­u­ment cov­ers a wide range of top­ics from the enabling powers and pur­poses of com­puls­ory pur­chase to pro­cesses for Com­puls­ory Pur­chase Orders (CPOs), imple­ment­a­tion, com­pens­a­tion and the poten­tial for altern­at­ive powers of com­puls­ory sale orders that have been pro­posed in the past by the Scot­tish Land Com­mis­sion or com­puls­ory lease orders that have been pro­posed by oth­ers. There are 122 ques­tions with­in the paper, often on fairly tech­nic­al ele­ments of procedure.

2. Giv­en that the Park Author­ity has no dir­ect exper­i­ence of using its CPO powers in prac­tice, officers pro­pose to respond only to the more gen­er­al ques­tions in the con­sulta­tion. We will gen­er­ally wel­come the pro­pos­als that con­sol­id­ate and sim­pli­fy the legis­la­tion and pro­ced­ures for pub­lic bod­ies to inter­vene in the own­er­ship and rights over land in the pub­lic interest as well as mak­ing the sys­tem fairer, more trans­par­ent and easi­er to under­stand for parties over whom powers are used.

3. There are a few changes that are pro­posed that are worth high­light­ing to mem­bers. Firstly, con­firm­a­tion of CPOs is cur­rently a decision for Scot­tish Min­is­ters, but the con­sulta­tion asks if this should be moved to the author­ity that is acquir­ing the land or prop­erty if the CPO is not opposed (or if any objec­tions have been resolved), in order to speed up the pro­cess. Sim­il­arly, a new faster mech­an­ism for tak­ing title to land is pro­posed to replace a num­ber of dif­fer­ent pro­cesses that can be used currently.

4. Secondly, the con­sulta­tion pro­poses new gen­er­al powers to allow the author­it­ies acquir­ing the land to also acquire rights in land (such as ser­vitude rights) without the need for full own­er­ship. This could reduce the impacts on those whose land is being acquired, reduce the the land being pur­chased and reduce the com­pens­a­tion costs for the pub­lic sec­tor. There are already some pub­lic bod­ies with this abil­ity but oth­ers without it and no obvi­ous reas­ons for the inconsistencies.

5. Finally, while com­pens­a­tion is an integ­ral part of com­puls­ory pur­chase pro­ced­ures, there are vari­ous routes to it and it must be claimed by an own­er rather than being offered by an author­ity and accep­ted by an own­er. There are also per­cep­tions about lack of trans­par­ency in the assump­tions made by acquir­ing author­it­ies in the valu­ing land and com­pens­a­tion. The con­sulta­tion gen­er­ally seeks views on sim­pli­fy­ing pro­cesses and improv­ing trans­par­ency for own­ers of land to receive appro­pri­ate compensation.

Next steps

1. Officers will provide brief com­ments to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment by the dead­line of 19 Decem­ber 2025.

Gav­in Miles 3 Decem­ber 2025 gavinmiles@​cairngorms.​co.​uk