Scottish Community Land Network

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This site is for people interested in the management and ownership of land-based assets by communities in Scotland. A Scottish Community Land Network, you might say... As you know the internet is a big 'place' with everything about anything so we aim to bring you relevant news and events, and provide opportunities to share ideas with other people interested in this subject. So far there are over 800 members, and more than 500 articles in our archive.

We hope you will join the network so that you can share your views, experiences and aspirations of owning and managing land-based assets.

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Scotland Rural Development Programme

SRDP review gets going

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Details: Thursday, 19 February 2009 10:36 Tamsin Morris Hits: 1234

The Scottish Government has appointed Peter Cook, an agricultural consultant and former head of rural business at Scottish Agricultural College, to assist with their review of the Scotland Rural Development Programme (SRDP).

The review is taking place before the full-scale review which has to be completed in 2010 and is being described as an opportunity to take into account the effect of the global economic downturn. But it's also a chance to identify some of the lessons to be learnt from the first year of the scheme's operation. The SRDP has come in for pretty hefty criticism during that time, particularly for its on-line only application system.

The National Farmers Union for Scotland (NFUS) have also just published some of their suggestions for how the scheme could be changed and improved. Their proposals include additional choices under the Land Managers Options (LMOs) section of the scheme as well as an increase in the total amount each farm can claim under LMOs. You can see the NFUS suggestions by going to their website and you can find the Scottish Government press release about the review here.

So it seems that Peter Cook and the review team will have plenty to consider during their three month review period. So far, there doesn't seem to be any mention of opportunities for the wider public to feed into the review. So if you want to vent your spleen about SRDP, or maybe even sing its praises, why not use our Forum for your comments and see what others think?