Episode 2

In this episode, Martin Geissler investigates our rural land – who owns it, what they are doing with it, and what the future might hold for it.

Because of the way land ownership has historically been recorded in Scotland, it can be even harder to find out who owns our rural land than it is to find out who owns the land in our town and cities. With the help of researcher and writer Andy Wightman, and the visualisation skills of design collective Lateral North, Martin explores what we do and don’t know about land ownership in rural Scotland and finds out why it matters.

Martin visits Lossiemouth, where ownerless property is losing the town a fortune in tourist income, and finds out how patchy and incomplete historic records saw the anglers of Selkirk miss out on their traditional fishing rights. He sees how easy it has been in the past for landowners to hide behind offshore trusts and explores an ancient pine forest and a highland estate to ask whether the way we think about and value our rural land is changing.

He also delves into the past, looking back to a time when Scotland was covered with common land, and asks whether the community buyout is revolutionising our pattern of land ownership.