Current status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 13 December 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive, with regard to the estimate of one application per year to exercise the crofting community right to buy contained in the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill, as referred to in paragraph 324 of the Explanatory Notes to the Bill, how many such applications it estimates will contain a salmon fishing as one of the subjects of the application.
No estimate has been or can be made. There are too many uncertainties. If experience of existing community purchases is anything to go by, a significant proportion of crofting community bodies may not be interested in acquiring salmon fishings. However, we consider it important that the opportunity to do so should be available.