John MacAskill, Scotland's Foreshore: Public Rights, Private Rights and the Crown, 1840–2017
| Published date | 01 May 2020 |
| Date | 01 May 2020 |
| Pages | 312-313 |
| DOI | 10.3366/elr.2020.0640 |
MacAskill notes in the introduction to this book that it “may seem that the ownership of and management of Scotland's foreshore is an unremarkable subject. But this is far from so…” (2). This claim is consistently verified over the course of this volume, which examines this topic and reveals that the foreshore has been the site of several conflicts generated by broad and controversial issues related to land and its ownership in Scotland. Such issues include the role of the Crown in the promotion of the public interest; the role and value of the protection of private property; the power of those with vested interests in land and their ability to influence the legislative process; the commodification of natural resources; the struggle for land reform and the precarious position of crofters and cottars; as well as the progress towards greater devolution in Scotland.
The foreshore is the area of land between the high and low water marks of the ordinary spring tides. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, there was a widely held view that the foreshore was owned by adjacent landowners as a pertinent of their lands and the Crown's interest was merely to protect public rights over the foreshore (3). However, from the 1830s onwards, as outlined by MacAskill, the Crown began to challenge this assumption and actively assert claims to ownership of the foreshore. The Association of Seaboard Proprietors (“Association”) was then formed in 1861 in order to dispute these claims and to establish through legislation or case law that landowners owned the foreshore next to their estates. The 130 members of this formidable Association owned between them over 28% of the total landmass of Scotland (34). These members were motivated by a desire to battle what they perceived as the unjust claims of the Crown and attacks on their rights of private property.
The work of the Association had multiple consequences, many of which are still evident today. MacAskill shows that the Association and its lawyers, Skene & Peacock, influenced amendments of the Crown Lands Bill in the House of Lords in 1866, which resulted in the continuation of the requirement to obtain full value for sales and leases of the Crown-owned foreshore under the management of the Board of Trade (chapter three). This was much to the consternation of Thomas Farrer, permanent secretary of the Board of Trade at this time, who believed in a strong role for the Crown as defender of the public interest in relation to...
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