​REGIONAL LAND USE PARTNERSHIP
Update January 2026:
"Land+ Snapshot" - New community research project getting underway. ​
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Building on our Land+ work in Kinlochbervie, and our Land+ Handbook with its Principles and Lessons, we are now expanding this valuable work across the NW2045 area.
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We are looking for people within each community to have conversations about the land around us; how it is being used; how that is changing; how these decisions are being made; the issues to overcome and opportunities to be explored.
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These ‘community co-leads’ will be paid for their time. There are no special qualifications required: training and support will be provided. Our co-leads just need to know their communities, and be interested in how land is used.
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It is a brief piece of work - early-February to mid-March 2026 - but it will give us a snapshot of the issues facing people – and the land – in our area, and understand how we can work together to overcome issues and make the most of opportunities. It will help us decide where the RLUP should focus efforts in the years ahead.
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We have a great local team collaborating to lead the work: Natasha Hutchinson (Wester Ross Biosphere); Fiona Saywell (North West Highlands Geopark); Mandy Haggith (University of Highlands & Islands and freelance creative); Rich Williams (Wilder Williams Regeneration). We are looking forward to bringing in more people to help take the conversations out into the communities.
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If you are interested to learn more, and are based in one of the NW2045 communities - Coigach, Assynt, Scourie, Kinlochbervie, Durness, Melness, Tongue & Skerray, and Bettyhill - please get in touch with Lizzie in the first instance.
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What is a Regional Land Use Partnership?
In 2021 the Scottish Government established five pilot Regional Land Use Partnerships (RLUPs) across Scotland. The aim was to support stakeholders to work together to make decisions about land use within an area in a fair and inclusive way. This is particularly necessary because of the urgent and bold changes in land use that are required to meet Net Zero and nature restoration targets.
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Put simply: the RLUPs exist to support people within a place – including landowners, land managers, and the wider community - to discuss issues about how land is used, and find solutions that will benefit all.
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Because of our existing cross-sectoral collaborative model, the NW2045 was an appropriate host for one of the five RLUP pilots.
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The NW2045 RLUP – the Land+ Project
The NW2045 RLUP is the only one of the pilots to be truly community-led. We have therefore been able to pilot a bespoke methodology - appropriate to our local situation - avoiding some of the challenges and constraints of working within a conventional institutional structure.
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The NW2045 RLUP initiated a project called ‘Land+’. Work focused initially on the Kinlochbervie Community Council area as a 'micro-pilot'. Three ‘Community Co-leads’ were contracted to work with the core team design and implement the project.
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Throughout this project, a set of draft Principles were developed. These Principles guide how we try to achieve collaboration across the community of place, and to catalyse positive change.
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'Community of place’ in this context includes
all those within a geographic area –
crofters, landowners, the wider community –
who share a collective responsibility
for the needs and future of the land.​
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Importantly: the objective of this work is to create the conditions that enable change to happen, rather than to directly deliver a programme of activity.
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By facilitating conversations and nurturing connections, the purpose of Land+ has been to empower people; to engender hope, a sense of possibility and agency, so that people can work together in trusting relationships to create a better future.
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This positive energy – when generated within the community of place – is itself a powerful catalyst for change, and it is from this foundation that opportunities can be seized, and work can flourish which directly serves the needs of people and nature in the region.
The Land+ Handbook
In Spring 2025, the Land+ team - led by Rachel Skene and Lizzie Williams - produced a Handbook comprising the many strands of work that have taken place since the inception of NW2045 RLUP pilot in 2021. Read more here.
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