Comrie Development Trust had a shaky AGM,
but nevertheless voted to buy Cultybraggan
Army Camp through Land Reform legislation

James Irvine

Teviot Scientific, Cultybraggan Farm, Comrie, Perthshire

Filed 23 Aug 07
©www.land-care.org.uk

Decision day for the Comrie Development Trust (CDT) as to whether or not to buy the 90 acre Cultybraggan Army Camp and adjoining land was Monday 20th August. The vote was taken at a time that coincided with the Trust's first AGM since being incorporated, in July 2006, as a Company Limited by Guarantee. The opportunity to purchase this substantial piece of land, that could be a prime so-called "brown field site" (but does not look like one), arose under Community Right to Buy legislation. This is part of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, with some important subsequent amendments.

The course leading up to decision day has been stormy: at least in the view of some. Others have regarded it as a cake-walk, with monies from the public purse pouring in, and every help being given through the Scottish Executive and Government Agencies to fill in the forms in the manner favoured by the Scottish Executive and by the Big Lottery Fund.

Generous funding has been provided from the public purse to hire professional consultants for the purpose of devising a business plan aimed at satisfying the criteria supposedly essential for the success of the project. Namely,

"to provide a business plan that would be both economically and environmentally sustainable and produce benefit to the community"

Here, it should be explained, that for the purposes of this article, the term "Public Purse" is taken to include funds from the Big Lottery Fund as well as funds that are derived through taxation. The Big Lottery is controlled in such a way that the profits, after deducting the cost of prizes and reasonable running costs, have to be spent on charitable causes that meet the required standards laid down by government regulation.

Limitations of the site: extant and imposed

With poor road access, no sewerage (the sewerage facilities previously used by the MOD having been condemned) and no access to enable connection with the public sewerage system, the potential value of the site was somewhat compromised. But these problems had been made much worse by Historic Scotland, who placed a Grade A listing preservation order on a substantial row of Nissan huts down the middle of this ex World War 2 POW camp, after almost 2 years of what they claimed to be deliberation, but in reality was incompetent delay.

The 90 acre camp and adjoining land had been obtained by the MOD by compulsory purchase from the then owners of Cultybraggan Farm in the early 1940's. Access to the now decommission sewage plant next the River Ruchil ends with the sale of the site. That explains why the Camp site is an isolated area of land in the middle of the surrounding farm, apart from some limited public road access.

The Scottish Executive refused to offer back the site to the farm at valuation, stating that the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 took preference.

When the MOD first indicated that they wished to dispose of their Camp at Cultybraggan in 2004, there was considerable interest from major companies in buying it on the open market. But once Historic Scotland got involved, most of them backed off - not even bothering to wait to see what they might come up with. The potential loss to the taxpayer - who funds the MOD - was huge. It is a remarkable fact that Historic Scotland does not take the economic consequences of its decisions into account.

The process of buying the Camp for the Community of Comrie

The process leading to the option for the Comrie Community to purchase the site started in about September 2006. So the relevant Comrie Committee has been at it for a full year.

A key early hurdle that had to be jumped was to get the good people of Comrie to vote that they were in favour of such a buy out.

This was done by asking them if, without any financial commitment or other responsibilities, whether they would be in favour of

"having an opportunity to have a say as to what happens to Cultybraggan Army Camp."

That, of course, is not the same thing as asking them if they were in favour of actually buying it. How could it be, as they had no idea as to what the financial commitments of their organisation might be, or what they really wanted to do with the property if they acquired it.

Hiring of Consultants

Funds were soon flowing from the Big Lottery to hire a team of consultants to help in the process.

At the time of awarding the contract it was made clear to those tendering that the task was to come up with a report which advised in an objective manner whether or not the village of Comrie should proceed with a bid to buy the Camp, the fundamental criterion being

"that it could be run by the Community in a manner that was sustainable both in terms of economics and environment, and in a manner that would benefit the Community."

An extensive exercise run by the appointed Consultants (DTZ in conjunction with architect firm HTA) gave the residents of Comrie the chance to let their imaginations play free with ideas, stipulating that such ideas at this stage need not have any economic considerations. So, on a nice sunny Sunday, the Trust held an open day. Lots of folk signed up that they would like

"an opportunity to have a say".

That, apparently, was enough to get through that early Scottish Executive hurdle. Everyone was reassured that everything was fine, because it was being overseen by an employee of the Community Land Unit of Highland & Islands Enterprise (HIE) - another very expensive quango of the Scottish Executive.

The HIE Community Land Unit (CLU) was established by Highlands and Islands Enterprise in 1997. Its mission statement includes:

"The aim of the team is to increase the role of communities in the ownership and management of land and land assets, and the sustainable management of these resources for the benefit of the community. In the process of achieving its aims and objectives, the team will encourage diversity and experimentation in community land initiatives".

Valuation of the property

The next step was for the Scottish Executive to appoint someone to value the property. The District Valuer duly obliged by providing a figure of £350,000 for the lot. The District Valuer is a Scottish Executive appointment.

Just how low this valuation was surprised both the Trust and the seller (the MOD), as well as mostly everyone else. Was this another helpful contribution by the Scottish Executive, or was the Valuer right in his judgement in view of the constraints on the property mentioned above?

The Comrie Development Trust Ltd

So now things were rolling along.

The Comrie Development Trust (CDT) was formed out of the Comrie Development Committee in 2005. It got itself registered in Companies House as a company limited by guarantee in July 2006. The leading interim Board members included two whose day jobs were directly involved in providing services to communities in terms of their development through planning and getting funding. Their services to CDT were, however, on an entirely voluntary basis.

Also on the interim Board was a senior army officer, whom I thought at the time was retired. But the Army is clearly part of the MOD who are the sellers. I was assured that there was no conflict of interest. Throughout the time the interim Board has been in place, I do not believe there has been a clear statement, to which CDT members have had ready access, that declared the interests of the interim Board members.

A working group of the CDT was formed to deal specifically with the possible buy out of the Army Camp. I was on that working group for a time, but when I indicated that perhaps the Camp should have been offered back to the farm at valuation, it was suggested that I had a conflict of interest. So I resigned from the working group. Instead, I was classified by the CDT as a "stakeholder" and heard very little from them since. They were aware that I had serious concerns over whether it would be possible to devise a business plan that could meet the necessary criteria as described above.

Perhaps the CDT Board regarded me as the sort of landowner who might want to asset strip the property, and sell of serviced plots of land for housing, or some such despicable act. Or, perhaps, that I might want to sell it on to some major commercial enterprise who might bring unwelcome (in their view) investment to the area and boost tourism in a significant way.

Communication between CDT and the residents of Comrie

The CDT now had to be seen to keep the people of Comrie informed, and to get them to join their Trust. The whole bureaucratic process was supposed to be based on taking account of the views of the Local Community. Without sufficient signed up members the Trust's credibility would be low.

No charge was involved in becoming a member. The only commitment would be that a member would have to cough up £1 should the Trust go bust. The only criteria for membership was to be over 18 years old, be a resident of Comrie and be on the voting register.

The CDT with the help of their Consultants published a Community Plan Brief in March 2007. It contained a broad statement of what the Community indicated were the sort of activities at the Camp that they would most like to see, and the ones they would least like to see, in the event of the Community buying it. The propaganda was rife that ownership of the land was the only way the Community would have control over what happened there. This of course completely omitted to mention the strong planning controls, that certainly can be influenced by what the local community wants, irrespective of who owns the land. Unless, of course, a denial of that statement is meant to imply that the community planners are corrupt. Surely not.

So with access to some £200,000 from the Public Purse to spend on the best professional advice in the land (of the Trust's own choosing) the next step was to produce the apparently obligatory business plan that would meet the standards required for both economic and environmental sustainability and also provide benefit for the Community.

You would have thought that if there had been a genuine case for this Community Buy Out that jumping this hurdle would be simple task. But....

Murmurs of discontent were beginning to circulate. Where was the debate with the residents of Comrie, rather than the perpetual promulgation of hype. Hype was everywhere. The Press Releases from the Trust Secretary failed to mention any comments of concern about the viability of the project.

In reality, the serious constraints on the possible uses of the property were obvious. Just how could it be possible to draft a plausible plan that would stack up, especially if the aspirations of the residents of Comrie were to be met?

Where was the money going to come from?

It transpired that the purchase price for the property, £350,000, had to be met from Bank borrowings. Either the CDT did not apply for the purchase cost to the Land Fund of the Big Lottery, or they were not eligible for reasons that, as a member of the CDT, I do not recall being told.

The bank loans, often described by the CDT Secretary as "interest free", in fact incurred interest rates at 3% over base (a high rate) starting in 18 months for a loan of £200,000 and in 3 years for a further loan of £150,000. That would mean that, at the present bank base rate of 5.75%, an applied interest rate of 8.75%. Simple arithmetic shows that the amount of interest that would be required to be paid, unless at least some of the loan was repaid, was some £17,500 per year after 18 months rising to some £30,000 per year after 3 years. That, by any standard, is a substantial financial commitment. And base bank rates can change, possibly upwards, as we have witnessed all too clearly this year.

So where was the money going to come from to meet that obligation? That is why a business plan was so important. But how could it match what was being asked of it?

This question was raised at a somewhat unsatisfactory open meeting of the CDT on 25th June 2007. Perceptive members of the gathering, especially those with some business experience, were expressing doubts. But the style of the meeting did not encourage open debate, but seemed designed to facilitate an emotional atmosphere whereby owning the land was the thing, rather than knowing what they wanted to do with it, and how the costs of running it would be met. It almost seem to be encouraging the approach that somebody else will pay for everything if we cannot make it work. That of course was totally contrary to the original condition: a business plan was required that would ensure both economic and environmental sustainability while providing benefit to the community.

Indeed, one particularly perceptive member asked

"Are we expected to see the business plan the week before the decision date and make a properly considered decision on it?"

Surprisingly, the answer was

"Yes"

Also clearly raised by a Comrie resident at that meeting was concern at the absence of a ready means of getting access to the facts about the relative economics, clearer information about any problems that were arising in terms of possible uses for the site, etc. There was no adequate website where this information could be stored and readily available to everybody, and which would allow members to exchange views among themselves. In other words, what the members wanted was sound information, and not just marketing propaganda.

The next open meeting was scheduled for Monday 13th August. Indeed just one week before the decision date that was declared to be immoveable. The consultants would produce their business plan at that meeting, which would incorporate their economic predictions. Efforts would be made to get a suitable website up and running, albeit at this very late date.

Matters came to a head at the open CDT meeting of Monday 13th August. There was still no business plan. There were no cashflow predictions. The terms of the substantial loans from the Tudor Trust were not made clear. The Consultants had no convincing suggestions as to how they would be able to meet the basic running costs, which they grossly underestimated. The theme from the Board was essentially that

"it will all come right once we own the land".

There were suggestions that they could sell off some of the land and its assets, such as an used cottage that had been classified for years by the MOD as a 'stone tent'.

That seemed miles away from what we had been told previously. But the hype continued:

"Owning land gives opportunity"

- missing out of course the bit about responsibility

"Owning the land is the only way we will have control over what happens on it"

- missing out, yet again, mention of the rigorous planning legislation which gives communities a strong say over what happens on land, whoever owns it.

No mention either that commercial investment could bring much prosperity to the area. The suggestion of the property going on the open market was treated by the CDT officials with horror, saying that

"the profits would be taken away to some other place beyond our control"

A Comrie resident, who runs a nationally respected architectural business in the village, stated that in his view the business plan, such as it was,

"was based on a wing and a prayer; it was a huge gamble; it was like buying a pup"

So, more detailed financial estimates and a business plan were promised for the night of the decision, the following Monday. This was to coincide with the first AGM of CDT Ltd. There were hints that selling off plots of land for luxury housing was a possibility.

The AGM

But with all the well-funded professional expertise available, the CDT Board of Directors would appear to have paid little attention to their own Memorandum and Articles of Association (M & A's), which have to be followed to comply with the Companies Act.

Before the AGM could get underway, points relating to proper procedure were raised that could well have made it inappropriate for the AGM to continue. The CDT Board had been formally warned of these concerns, but even then the Trust's solicitor in attendance had a difficult time putting forward replies that were convincing.

The points made included concern about the absence of any accounts. A condition of the Companies Act with regard to the running of an AGM is that

"the annual accounts shall be considered"

Whether stating that the accounts have not been completed and will be reported at a later date counts as consideration was not clear. The auditors were not there. Was this enough to satisfy the Companies Act and allow the AGM to proceed?

At the Monday 13th August meeting the Company Secretary denied that the accounts had to be circulated to the membership 21 days before the AGM at which they would be considered. When the law was quoted to him, he admitted that he was wrong, that he had misled the meeting and that the accounts could therefore not be presented at the AGM on 20 August.

Certainly, in comparison to all the AGMs I have attended of various organisations, this Trust's solicitor had to work the hardest to save the AGM from collapsing. I would have thought that there might be a challenge through Companies House.

But the 200 or so Comrie residents who were there, by no means all of whom had signed up as members of the Trust and therefore unable to vote, showed signs of getting bored with these tedious points of order, essential though they are.

Certainly it was a bad idea to hold the agm and the crucial vote on the Camp on the same night. Previous minutes of the CDT Board had suggested this, but in the event that warning was over-ridden.

But matters got worse. After more hype from the CDT chairperson, who is a part-time employee of Scottish Natural Heritage (another expensive government quango that has a reputation for misleading communities that it wants to influence), the consultants presented what was promised to be their business plan, including their economic predictions.

Essentially, there was no business plan, except in so far as to sell off serviced plots of land for luxury housing at inflated prices - precisely what the residents had earlier stated was high in their list of things they specifically did not want.

It was claimed that each serviced plot of land would be worth up to £100,000. And so would the "stone tent". They could sell them off as the cashflow required.

There were no other credible sources of income that would meet the running costs, let alone the looming bank interest charges that would begin to take effect as soon as18 months after purchase. The extremely sketchy cashflow predictions were presented on a worse case scenario basis. There was no better case scenario presented. The amount of monies mentioned included sums as high as £500,000. Basic figures for highly predictable expenditure were simply not there in any form of detail. It was 'back of an envelope' stuff.

But the gathering was again told that

"once we own the land it will be much easier to get people to commit themselves".

I wonder.

Certainly, as a director of a limited company, I would not dream of putting such a proposal to a bank with any hope of success, but at considerable cost to my credibility. So why should the public sector be so very different? Are they, above others, allowed to be financially irresponsible?

But there seemed to be an even more fundamental flaw in the Consultants' proposals. How come that the officially appointed valuer had valued, only a few months previously, exactly the same property so very differently, in the same knowledge of the constraints indicated by Perth & Kinross Planning Department, and in a land market that had not significantly improved during that short interval? The Valuer and the Consultants could not both be right. Either the Valuer got it wrong - for whatever reason - or the Consultants were telling us porkies.

It was only revealed by questioning from the floor, that the Bank would hold £200,000 security over the property, and that Perth & Kinross Planning had only indicated their agreement in terms of the use of the existing road access to the equivalent of a total of 10 houses. Use over and above the equivalent of 10 houses would have to be deducted. That would mean fewer houses.

So what the Consultants were presenting was highly misleading. They were suggesting that they could sell off serviced plots of 6 - 8 houses and still be able to run things such as an owl centre, sports facilities, polytunnels, allotments, light industry, and even MOD leadership training courses, as well as a visitors centre based on Historic Scotland's preserved Nissan huts. And, of course, a house on site for a caretaker to improve security. According to what Perth & Kinross Council Planners had indicated in terms of currently available road access, that obviously did not stack up.

It would seem that the occupiers of the luxury houses are going to have an interesting time, if the raucous noise of previous leadership courses at the Army Camp is anything to go by, complemented by the owls who prefer to do their screeching at night.

Were all these activities going to have their own septic tanks, or use some remarkable reed bed that allowed the effluent water to soak away without damaging the neighbouring farm's fields that lie at a lower level?

The Consultants were flying kites, but this time they had apparently also lost the control strings.

In my view this amounted to a serious misrepresentation in terms of presenting an objective assessment of a feasible business plan. Remember the above description of the terms of their contract?

The proposed light industrial use was another 'no, no' as stated in the CDT's own planning brief of March 2007: a publication that was no doubt used to gain the approval of the funding bodies.

Composting of waste, of unspecified nature, was also put forward by the Consultants as a possible use of the site. Seems to me that would also significantly add to the amount of road traffic. Not only that, but the Consultants had been made aware, as if they were not already, that there are major concerns at a national level of having such composting facilities in the vicinity of a livestock farm. No matter, such reservations were not given a mention at the meeting. A previous statement said that the Consultants were taking advice on the matter, without letting on what the concerns were, and that planning permission may well be refused.

For the area of ground opposite the Camp, which is currently used for grazing, the plan was to possibly use it for some bio energy project, such as growing trees for wood chips to stoke burners. Fine, but did they bother to look at the terrain? They also suggested that it might be used for recreational purposes. Oh yes? Again, did they bother to look at the terrain? Not a single mention of letting it to a farmer for rough grazing, which is what it is most obviously suited for. No doubt farming wouldn't pay enough, or the responsibilities of meeting the rules that govern agricultural land, whether in receipt of agricultural subsidies or not, would be too onerous and expensive for the CDT Ltd. Possibly, they never gave farming a thought, failing to appreciate that over generations the local farmers have done much to maintain the surrounding environment in good order.

One lady was trying to express what I took to be her concern that the Tudor Fund, that was supplying the major loans, was supposed to be to there to help deprived and disadvantaged people, and that the residents of Comrie did not exactly fit that criterion. However, somehow she never quite got the opportunity to get her full message across. I wonder why. After all it was the local minister who was in the chair.

There were stirring words from another speaker from the floor, who did not seem to want to be concerned with such pragmatic issues as basic management, costs, responsibilities and necessary access.

But before the vote was taken there were other important housekeeping matters to be attend to at this agm.

The Trust's Memorandum and Articles of Association needed to be amended to comply with recent changes in Company Law. These changes would allow CDT Ltd to be registered as a charity, and so avoid substantial tax costs. Fine, but the Secretary was reminded that, if CDT Ltd was registered as a charity, it would have to abide by the ever stricter rules that regulated such organisations. If they did not follow these rules, they would lose charitable status and its benefits. The amendments were passed without objection.

If CDT gets registered as a charity before 7th September they could straight way save some £11,000 on stamp duty, the gathering was told. The CDT had better run a tighter ship than they have allegedly done to date.

As in all previous open meetings of the CDT on the subject of buying the Camp, there was totally inadequate time given to properly debate this very important issue: probably the most important issue over which the CDT may ever be asked to decide. There was never a meeting when the case for purchase was balanced with an opportunity for the case against to have a say.

Then there was the matter of getting the interim Board changed into a proper Board.

Again, the CDT got its organisation of the meeting sadly in a right mess. The CDT does not appoint a Board of self-nominated individuals, as it had claimed in the leaflet it circulated before the agm. Its members have to elect them. And that means the members of CDT have to be told their credentials, and have an opportunity to elect them or not. While there were 12 vacancies and just twelve nominations it is only necessary for the Board to elect 5 members for a competent Board to be established. But these key bits of information came from a member attending the meeting: not from the Company Secretary.

So each person who had put themselves forward had to say their piece. Which was indeed informative. Probably along many others, I did not know who some of them were.

What was remarkable was the preponderance of those who were either presently employed, or had retired from employment, in the public sector. Many might think that this is hardly a good criterion for being responsible for the prudent management of funds within the constraints of a company limited by guarantee. let alone a registered charity. Yet there was at least one who should be very familiar with the regulations that govern such a company, charitable or otherwise. That member had been on the interim Board and chaired open meetings of the CDT, and was or had been on the Board of other charitable organisations. So why had he not rung alarm bells over the manner in which CDT Ltd was proposing to run its AGM?

It also seemed strange to me that one member of the interim Board announced himself as a serving army officer. It is alleged that he has, or recently has had, responsibilities in relation to the MOD's camps in Scotland. I had previously verbally expressed my concern to the CDT Secretary as to a possible conflict of interest, but had been reassured that there was no conflict of interest. And that the representative from HIE Community Land Unit had vouched that all was well. But the Army is certainly part of the MOD. The MOD, through their Defence Estates, are the sellers of the property and should be looking for the best price they can get, particularly as the property is owned by the taxpayer. Then we heard the announcement that, miraculously, the MOD were prepared to consider funding a leadership training facility at the Camp. Surprising for a camp that had been classified as being redundant to MOD needs, but may be they only need a bit of it. From the racket that such MOD enterprises previously made, I would doubt if it would fit well with luxury residential housing.

In the event all the candidate for the new Board were individually elected with a cheer. But a lesson had been learned, hopefully, that it is necessary to follow proper procedure if a company is going to handle such large amounts of money, and be limited in its liabilities by guarantee, and get the benefit of avoiding tax through registering as a charity.

Perhaps some of those who had volunteered to be members of the Board were beginning to realise the responsibilities they had taken on, even on a voluntary basis. The Members of the Board of a Company are only protected should the company go bust if they have conducted themselves in a responsible manner. Unless they have taken due care, they can be criminally liable for accidents, etc.

The hard facts are that it makes no difference whether a Board Member is acting in a purely voluntary capacity, out of good will, or not. He or she carries the same responsibilities, and is exposed to the same liabilities.

For the Chairperson and the Secretary of CDT Ltd to bluff their way through, saying that they had been too busy to attend to such administrative matters, is far from satisfactory. They had funds to pay auditors and solicitors. Indeed, civil servants from the Scottish Executive provided free advice and encouragement at every stage for this politically driven programme.

The crucial vote

So, in the absence of any audited accounts and no credible business plan, and after some more triumphal encouragement from the Chairperson of the CDT that this will be

"blazing the trail as an example for the whole of rural Scotland."

the meeting proceed to the crucial vote.

But even the voting system had to be adjusted, as the Trust, on the advice of its attending solicitor, agreed that the postal voting system that they had advertised did not comply with their own M & As. The postal votes had to be discarded, thus disenfranchising them from having a say. When warned of this on the day of the meeting, frantic attempts had been made to arrange for proxies to submit the postal vote forms without checking how far in advance the M & As required proxy forms to be submitted,

It was agreed at the meeting that the postal votes would be counted but not included in the actual vote, to see if they would have made any difference.Two volunteers from the gathering were asked for, who were not members of the Trust, to do the counting of these postal votes, Interestingly, one of the selected non-member volunteers was the Chairman of Comrie Community Council.

So all ballot papers were discarded and voting by a show of hands adopted. Members of the CDT who had signed in all got a blue card. They held it up according to the way they wished to vote.

A substantial, but unknown , number of members present voted for buying the camp.

One member, me, voted against.

An indeterminate number abstained, some of them on the grounds that to vote would mean that they had endorsed the manner in which the meeting was been run.

So what now?

No doubt the obvious inability of the Board of the CDT Trust to run a competent AGM will be brushed aside by the authorities, both political and funding. The fact there has not been proper debate will also, no doubt, be ignored. The fact that the expressed wishes of the Local Community, such as not to have residential housing and not to have industrial or commercial activities, have patently not been met, will also be overlooked.

What in fact happened was that quite a small minority of Comrie residents voted, almost unanimously, to own the Camp: this in spite of the absence of any compete business plan or adequately prepared cashflow predictions, or even evidence that CDT Ltd had the ability to run a competent AGM.

All that this minority group of Comrie residents wanted was to own the site, no matter what. All the charade of consultation with the local people came to nothing. Those that voted didn't appear to care, nor did they know, what to do with the Camp. Ownership was everything, and at no cost to themselves or any responsibilities or liabilities, apart from perhaps risking £1. One way or another the Public Purse will pay for it all, in spite of all the hype to the contrary.

The local word, after the vote, was that

"it was the incomers that did it."

So on the 7th September 2007 the Comrie Development Trust Ltd (who represent some 15 - 20% of the residents of this large affluent village) will own the 90 acres of Camp and adjoining land. Unless they are heavily baled out by funds from the Public Purse, it is very difficult to see how the project is going to work, especially with such limited access regarding road and sewerage, and the planning constraints placed in principle by Perth & Kinross Council.

But as far as Cultybraggan Farm (which surrounds the Camp) is concerned, it is only interested in coming to some arrangement over these essential access matters provided the new owner of the Camp is a credible business organisation. On the present record, CDT LTd does not satisfy that basic condition. That is why, as owner of the farm and a resident of Comrie, I voted against CDT Ltd buying it under Community Right to Buy legislation.

It is interesting to recall that, once Historic Scotland had eventually decided to place a Category A statutory order on a substantial row of Nissan huts down the middle of the site and a Community Right to Buy application had been registered, the possible uses for the Camp were likely to be feasible were worked out by myself on the back of an envelope in part of an afternoon. Essentially, that list is no different from what DTZ/HTA Consultants produced after months of deliberation and at huge cost.

Historic Scotland's activities and the Community Right to Buy procedure has undoubtedly cost the taxpayer (through lost revenue to the MOD) and other aspects of the Public Purse, very dear. Possibly of the order of £millions.

For this Community ownership to succeed, continued support, in one form or another, from the Public Purse or Charities will be needed. Not only will the residents of Comrie have failed to get the benefits from the substantial and stable investment that a commercial enterprise could have brought had the site gone on the open market, but many other charities, whose needs are genuinely desperate, will also be the losers.

Finis

I don't suppose the owls would mind, they prefer to do their screeching after dark.

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Comrie Development Trust had a shaky AGM, but nevertheless voted to buy Cultybraggan Army Camp through Land Reform legislation