QUITE A LOT of people own a bit of the Ochils: there are probably over 100 sizeable holdings between Dunblane and the M90 at Glen Farg. How do we know who to contact if we have a local concern?
In the past, FotO has gathered information about local land holdings from various sources, including the obvious one of asking people. This was fine when we were pursuing some particular local interest. But lately there have been increasing development pressures in widely spread parts of the Ochils, including some where we don't have the benefit of local knowledge. Not having a ready source of reference to identify relevant land holdings and owners created a difficulty for the committee.
I tried to use Andy Wightman's book Who Owns Scotland? (published by Canongate) and transfer the relevant information to a map of the Ochils, with a bit of local knowledge and some guesswork. This worked for the major holdings, but those were the ones we knew well anyway. The committee therefore decided to commission Wightman himself to do an intensive piece of work on the Ochils. The result is a ring binder of maps showing current land holdings and owners, and a 600MB computer file of all the maps.
Andy produced a superb piece of work for a fairly modest donation to his project to create a national map of landownership in Scotland (http://www.whoownsscotland.org.uk/). Within a limited time he was able to cover about 80% of the Ochils. Some of the gaps are those areas with development pressures, but we sometimes know their ownership although not their extent or boundaries.
So what does all this tell us? There are 78 mapped land holdings. They range from the very large to the small. Examples of the former include the 15000-acre Blackford Estate, owned by a holding company from Liechtenstein, and the 6750-acre Gleneagles Estate in the local hands of the long-established Haldane family. Small holdings include the 180-acre plantation above Maiden's Well in Glen Quey (owner from Dunning), a 161-acre section of the Condie Hill plantations (owner from Berkshire) and Longdrum Wood above Dunning (owner from Hong Kong).
There are large total holdings owned by the Forestry Commission, the Woodland Trust and (in total) by a range of private owners. With the latter, it tends to be obscure where control actually lies. For example, Auchtenny Farm (mostly forested) is owned by the FIM Forestry Trust 2005 of Oxfordshire, Rossie Hill by the Trustees of Roger M A Van Zwanenberg, c/o Kayser Ullman Investment Management Ltd of London, and Auchlinsky Hill by Glenquey Forestry Ltd of Newcastle upon Tyne. It comes almost as a relief to find that the owners of the forested north side of Lendrick Hill are as close as Glasgow.
It is striking how often the conifer monocultures are owned from addresses well beyond the Ochils. Unlike the many local owners, who often run more visually attractive and biodiverse mixed enterprises, for many distant owners it seems likely that land is an investment rather than an attachment. Of course, examples could be cited to the contrary. Perhaps some of these distant owners are descendants of the original owners - who can tell? It would create a fascinating story to trace the history of particular areas or land holdings. Anyone interested?
On a more practical note, now that we have the resource, we need to work out a way of keeping it up to date. Landownership can change quite a lot in a short time. Anyone who can help should contact me - details on page six of the newsletter.
