Community Land Scotland Conference

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I attended the Community Land Scotland Conference in my capacity as a Director of Tiree Development Trust.
A “grouppic smallrib” picked myself and Andy from the Trust Team up on Tiree at 7am last Friday morning. It was a perfect day for a boat ride around the Scottish Hebrides. We went to the islands of Eigg and Rum to pick up more delegates and arrived on Skye in time for the start of the conference. It was held at the Gaelic College “Sabhal Mor Ostaig” which is in itself an inspiration and is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Alex Salmon, Scotland first minister, opened the conference with a couple of exciting announcements. They have given a further 3 million to the Scottish Land Fund and extended it to 2016. He also has put the target up to 1 million acres of Community Owned Land by 2020 in Scotland. The conference covered all aspects of land ownership in Scotland and certainly gave us a lot of food for thought on Tiree. We shared lots of good practice stories and what exciting things are being done in a lot of rural and urban communities across the country. We arrived back on Tiree on Saturday night sun-burnt and very inspired by the experience on lots of levels. Here is a picture of some of the delegates outside in the amphitheatre at the College. www.communitylandscotland.co.uk