The Common Good Property Register of Perth and Kinross Council has been published as required by Part 8 of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. In preparing this Register, regard has given to the guidance on Common Good Property for local authorities issued by Scottish Ministers in July 2018.
Property can have common good status if it was gifted to or acquired by a former Burgh and if it meets certain criteria (this list is not exhaustive):
- The title deeds specify that the area of land or building is to be held or gifted to the community
- The land has been used by the general public for a number of years
- The land or building was gifted to the community, usually for a specific purpose
In general, property which was acquired by the former Burgh under statute (eg for housing) or under a special trust is not part of the common good. Whether or not property forms part of the common good often requires extensive research into the facts and circumstances of its acquisition and its subsequent use. For this reason, the Register may be amended in the future following further investigations. There are 10 Common Good Areas within Perth and Kinross, namely
- Aberfeldy
- Abernethy
- Alyth
- Auchterarder
- Blairgowrie
- Coupar Angus
- Crieff
- Kinross
- Perth
- Pitlochry
Online Register
This Register follows an earlier draft published for consultation purposes over a 16-week period, from January until April 2023. The representations which were received during this consultation are incorporated as part of this Register along with the Council's responses.
The primary intention is that the online, electronic Register will be used as this version enables the full use of the digital map and all the related information which this contains. However, hard or paper copies of the Common Good Register for each area will be available at the corresponding library for that area throughout Perth & Kinross.
The Register comprises:
- Common good interactive map which identifies all common good heritable property
- A Common good spreadsheet (Excel doc, 54 KB) listing all common good properties within each common good area, listed alphabetically
- A record of the representations submitted during the public consultation and the Council's responses to them
There has been one amendment to the Register from that shown in the draft although the change is not due to a consultation representation. During the final checking of the titles within the Perth Common Good Account, it was discovered that Moncrieffe Island had been acquired by the Water Works Commissioners of Perth in connection with their statutory powers, derived from the Perth Water Act 1877 and Perth Water and Gas Act 1888.
In allocating part of the Island to use as allotments it is considered that the Burgh had in mind the use of statutory powers, namely the Allotments (Scotland) Act 1892. As such, the land on which these allotments are situated is not common good property and accordingly it is no longer shown in the Register or the associated map.
This Register identifies only the Council's heritable Common Good Property, which is to say, land and buildings. It is the case that common good property includes moveable property, such as furniture and any civic regalia which belonged to the former Burghs until they ended in 1975. The work to identify and list this moveable property is not complete. Work to identify the Council's moveable common good property will be undertaken in 2024 and the results of that work will be published and incorporated into this Register as soon as possible thereafter.
The Council is required to undertake periodic reviews of the Register and, in any event, on not less than a 5 yearly basis.
For more information about Common Good law in Scotland, you can watch this video by Andrew Ferguson, author of 'Common Good Law in Scotland'.
If you have an enquiry in relation to this Register, please contact Callum MacLeod, Solicitor, by emailing LegalServices@pkc.gov.uk.
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