Achi news desk-
Around 33,000 people live on crofts across the Isles of Held, the Highlands, Argyll and the North.
Eigg currently has 21 divisions across two townships.
While traditional crofting is much less common than it was 30 years ago, it still plays an important role in Eigg’s economy and culture, says the Trust.
The development plan will show how the ambitions and challenges expressed by Eigg’s resident crofters during the consultation can be supported.
The community landlord and croft tenants are inviting tender proposals from croft experts to write a development plan which supports the community’s long-term vision to “regenerate the Eigg croft community, by encouraging increased use of the croft land, reducing absenteeism and promote the preservation of community-owned land.”
Eigg is located 10 miles off the west coast of Scotland and was one of the first communities in the country to buy out and the first island to buy it.
The Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust (IEHT) has owned and managed the island since 1997.
Crofting is a system of land tenure and farming unique to Scotland, and has had its own legislation for nearly 140 years.
Crofters were given the right to buy their individual smallholdings in 1976.
In 2003, as part of the Land Reform Act, croft community bodies were given the right to purchase eligible croft land associated with the local croft community.
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The new chief executive of the Crofts Commission has said that the statutory body wants to help make it easier for people to work the land.
Gary Campbell said the commission wanted to be more efficient in its handling of crofting regulations, and to do better in dealing with issues related to absent crofters.
Mr Campbell, a chartered accountant whose family has a croft in Taynuilt, Argyll, said the Croft Commission deals with up to 2,500 regulatory applications a year.
These include applications for change of ownership, creation of new crofts and also decrofting, which means removing land from croft tenure.
Mr Campbell said that follow-up visits would be made this year to crofts which are rented by people who had not filled in the commission’s annual census over a number of years.
When interviewed by BBC Scotland he said that some absentee crofters may be keeping their heads down and hoping they won’t be found because they are worried their farms will be taken away from them.
“That is not true at all. We want to work with crofting communities, not against them,” he said.
Earlier this year a hotelier on the Isle of Barra called for changes to craft laws to tackle the housing shortage.
Marion MacNeil, who owns the Heathbank Hotel in Northbay, said: “There are people with several crofts while there are people looking for a bit of land.
“The Crofting Commission needs to recognize that they are part of the problem.”
