Yet everywhere I look I see villages being hollowed out, changed into retreats for urban people who are seeking an escape. From what I can only guess. Are they reaching out for some form of community they feel they can’t find in the city? Do they just want some peace and quiet? Do they yearn for a ‘simpler life’ in the countryside?

In Scotland we see two parallel trends out in the countryside. We see the ‘hollowing out’ of communities mentioned, but we also see a trend by wealthy landowners (individual, corporate, NGOs, the differences are superficial), to keep the land de-peopled (or, in the fashionable parlance of the day, ‘to keep it wild’).

They are the two sides of the same coin. Of course villages are getting hollowed out, for the urban ghettos have become unbearable for our souls, they are doing hour heads in, and so, those of us who can, escape them as and when we can. But here in Scotland we should be asking the lairds wishing to turn us into a ‘rewilding nation’:

Where are the crofts?

Where are the crofts on the ~60,000 hectares managed by the Cairngorms Connect landowners? On the ~90,000 hectares of Povlsen’s land? And, not least, on the ~25,000 hectares of John Muir Trust land?

What is ‘rural’ in the absence of the crofts, other than a playground for the wealthy?