26th Jan

When the Community Empowerment legislation was being drafted, a general presumption in favour of requests from communities to have an asset transferred was established. However, it was felt that for communities to have real confidence in the process, an appeals process to Scottish Ministers should also be included. But the whole point of an appeals process is that there must be some chance of winning and to date, not one appeal has been successful. A group from Brechin is the latest to fall foul of a system that is fast losing all credibility.