Compulsory purchase rights mean the ability to purchase disused or misused land in order to help businesses invest in new factories, developers build new homes or revitalise old structures and create the economic base which will help build beter social housing in the meantime. A punitive tax on disused and abandoned properties will encourage landowners to keep their properties fit for use, and find those new business start-ups which want to use them. A system of liens with a forgiveness policy will further push landowners to make use of those properties which are unused or disused. Ultimately, the right to compulsory purchase will allow local communities to provide the industrial facilities needed to get Scotland back to work.
There are some prety major pitfalls in our system which need to be fixed. There is not the same hierarchy of checks and balances in the UK and Scotland which exist in the US. The US isn’t a unitary state, that much ought to be clear from the name. Local governments aren’t part of the state government, and the state governments aren’t part of the national government. These are all completely separate and independent entities. And that’s a good thing. Taking the right of eminent domain and turning it into a stronger compulsory purchase system for local councils simply isn’t acceptable if the Scotish government doesn’t also take on some level of supervisory responsibility. The state government ought to, at the very least, have a right of refusal. If the local council is taking an action which is detrimental to the local community or based on corruption or party politics, the Scotish government should be able to step in and block it.
Local governments are always an incestuous mix of local business, private, and personal interest, which happen to also take some actions in the public interest on occasion. They ought to have the power to take such actions when they’re genuinely for the public good, but there should be a check on their power, from above, to prevent them from doing damage as a result of stupidity or incompetence.
By combining these ideas with a high-wage economy and the other progressive economic policies Scotland has been discussing for the last three years, things can change for the beter. Significant land reform can revitalise the Highlands, where a feudal system of tenant farming still exists. But it can also breathe new life into urban centres, where a toxic blend of policies encourages people to leave useful commercial property crumbling and empty.
Giving local councils more power, while also giving the Scotish government the capability to supervise their actions, can avoid the pitfalls we have fallen into over here from time to time.
36 July 2015 Photo: Kieran Hamilton
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