Wheelhouse visit
PAUL Wheelhouse, the Scottish environment minister in charge of crofting, is to meet local crofters in the isles this summer.
Wheelhouse made the promise to Shetland MSP Tavish Scott during a debate in Holyrood on Tuesday when Wheelhouse announced an amendment to the Crofting Reform (Scotland) Act.
The revision was needed to clear up an unintended consequence of changes to crofting law that blocked owner occupiers of crofts to decroft their land to build a house.
Wheelhouse told the Scottish Parliament: “The Scottish government has been working extremely hard with the Scottish Parliament, the Crofting Commission and other stakeholders to resolve these issues as quickly as possible.”
However there remain many outstanding problems with the new Act and government officials will be spending the next few months meeting various stakeholders to address these issues.
As part of that process, Wheelhouse will come to Shetland to meet island crofters who were some of the most vocal about problems with the new Act.
Scott said: “I welcome the Scottish government visiting Shetland to sit down with local crofters, to define the problems and find the solutions which are desperately needed.”
He said he feared that parliament would become bogged down in an endless cycle of changes to crofting law that does not work at the moment.
“I want parliament to debate crofting for the right reasons; the quality of beef and lamb, breeding livestock production and active people in strong local communities,” he said.
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