Urras Oighreachd Ghabsainn

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5.0  COMMUNITY OWNERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT OPTIONS

To comply with the requirements of the Land Reform 2003 (Scotland) Act the structure and constitution of any ownership vehicle is defined in the Act. This determines that it must be a company limited by guarantee with 50% of the voting being represented being the crofting community. This structure must remain in place while the community own the property. Beyond the legal framework the details of how this will work in practice are not finalised but discussion within the steering groups has generated some initial parameters.

A number of directors will be legally responsible for the operation of the Company. The election of directors is an open and democratic ballot and all those who are members of the Trust are eligible to vote. Women and a youth representation should be encouraged to stand for nomination.

It is suggested that the estate will not be divided into areas so that the pool of people who can stand for nomination encompasses the whole estate.  For example, if the estate were divided into 3 areas and each area must provide a determined number of directors, this could cause problems in the future if an area were unable to nominate suitable candidates and yet there was a surplus of good candidates elsewhere on the estate.

Once the board of directors is in place, directors will then be allocated areas that they must represent. The board will be facilitated by a full or part-time executive officer who will assist with the management of the estate. This is an extremely important role. Given the number and broad range of development opportunities identified significant time input will be require to enable the options to come to reality. To a large extent the realisation and success of the options will be a function of the amount of quality time and advice that is invested in them. Investment at this level is unlikely to be available to board members serving in a voluntary capacity for any sustained period and board members roles should be primarily as community representatives and ‘portfolio leaders’ where they can devote time to co-ordinating and giving direction, with implementation being a function of the manager/administrator working with delegated authority to an agreed programme.

It is proposed that the board can nominate associates to it  - this will facilitate those who are not eligible to be nominated as a director, as they do not have voting rights, to be able to input their expertise into the Trust's business.

The board of Directors will then liaise in their specific areas of responsibility with the grazing clerks, community council, private sector, voluntary and public organisations in the Galson area either as a 'liaison group', which will represent all groups or as individual organisations/companies.  This could be on a quarterly basis.

6.0  CONCLUSION

Galson Estate in a number of ways a property of extremes. It is a substantial estate in area terms but it has very few tangible assets beyond land. There are many opportunities identified for enterprises that would build viability to the local community, but relatively few of them are within the direct control of the Estate to be able to deliver. The current Estate business has a very small revenue stream but should a windfarm be built, the revenue stream would be increased many fold in one step. Galson Estate is also in some ways fully intertwined with the fabric of the community and in other ways its impact is almost an irrelevance. Against this background of extremes it is a challenge to provide a simple answer to whether the purchase of Galson for the community is a viable proposition.

In simple financial terms the analysis of the accounting information that we have been party to, together with our own assessments, indicates that the Estate business is viable in the short term. It makes an annual revenue surplus, albeit small. The longer term viability of the business is relatively secure although it is predicted that the ongoing revenue margin is likely to diminish.

Whilst it is important that the Estate business is financially stable, the challenge of assessing viability for the community goes beyond appraising the maintenance of a marginal business activity. In fulfilment of this wider remit the study revealed a very broad range of potential options for a much deeper integration into the community of both the landed assets of the Estate and the corporate advantages that an Estate can bring to deliver.  Underpinning the options identified was a very clear focus on an Estate purchase being used as a catalyst to release both physical constraints (which were relatively few in number) but also a facilitating an enabling role perhaps not directly connected to the land owning aspect of estate ownership.

It was evident that the potential purchase of the land was genuinely seen as an opportunity to stimulate economic and social activity in the Galson area and this created a focus on development options that would contribute to the wider benefit rather than only those that would improve the performance of the Estate business. The options identified and further investigated in the community workshops when amalgamated clearly have the potential to deliver benefits both to the Estate and wider area.

It is an attractive facet of the review that when amalgamating the range of development options into a whole Estate projection there is a broad range of options that could be implemented and with each making a relatively modest contribution to the overall business. Developing this wider range of options with each at a smaller scale will buffer the business from the risk of one larger option failing with the added advantage of the benefits being spread over a wider front and this is shown in the positive benefits highlighted in the wider economic impact.

It is concluded that a community purchase of Galson Estate would be taking on a viable existing small business. The Estate has the capacity to stimulate a wide range of development options that would add a broad viability to the business and generate wider economic and social benefits. It is considered that a number of these developments could occur irrespective of ownership but that ownership correctly managed would have the capacity to act as a catalyst to the effective delivery of the options identified for the benefit of the community.

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