Highland Council to progress substantial land audit tracker project
Members agreed yesterday (Thursday 14 December 2023) to begin a 25,653 km2 Highland Council area wide land audit to produce a definitive digital record known as a “Terra Tracker” of all its land and property assets.
Terra Tracker represents an ambitious change of approach to deliver a corporate wide land and asset data system which provides ongoing sustainable benefits for the whole Council, its partners, and communities.
The Convener, Bill Lobban explained: “As a continuing legal entity, The Highland Council, which is the largest local authority in the UK, has existed for many centuries through various statutory predecessors, including the former District, Regional, County and Burgh Councils. Consequences of this long history include the geographic dispersal of records with associated losses of both physical records and institutional knowledge.”
Most land and buildings owned by The Highland Council are not registered, but are still recorded in one of several older registers. Principal among these is the General Register of Sasines, which is the oldest national public land register in the world. Establishing ownership from Sasine deeds can be challenging for various reasons,
including: -
- deeds date from 1617
- deeds may be in mediaeval Latin
- deeds often don’t include plans
- plans (when included) are often inaccurate or impossible to relate to the contemporary landscape; and
- land may be vaguely described with reference to features that no longer exist.
In Scotland, the ownership of land and buildings is now transferred by registration in the Land Register of Scotland. The Land Register is accessible, as it is digital and based on Ordinance Survey Maps.
The Chair of Resources, Cllr Derek Louden said: “The Highland Council as a local authority covers a substantial 25,653 km2 which, in context, is almost the size of a country like Belgium. It’s a substantial land mass and an accurate audit of our land assets is essential for the Council to effectively deliver ambitious housing and renewable energy projects and identify income generation opportunities.
“Consolidating all the Council’s assets in one central place will substantially assist with asset rationalisation, identify any encroachment of land by third parties, reduce duplication and in turn will improve service productivity and efficiency savings.”
Benefits of the Terra-Tracker are outlined below:
- revenue and capital income
- empowerment of Communities
- empowerment of Council Services
- optimised support for asset management
- identification of 3rd Party encroachment on Council land
- digitised title deeds; and elimination of duplication across services
- assist the just transition to net zero and empower communities by enabling self-help.
The two-year project which aims to be self-financing will be delivered by a small team of Officers who will now develop the project plan in preparation for project commencement on 1 April 2024. Regular progress reports will be brought before the Corporate Resources Committee.
The Business Case and Outline Delivery Plan can be accessed here (Item 15)