Building A Future Where Rural And Island Scotland Flourishes
Scotland’s rural communities are the backbone of our nation.
Scotand’s rural communities face mounting pressures: depopulation, inadequate public transport, the closure of essential services, isolation, and the cost of living crisis hitting harder where incomes are lower and costs are higher.
But rural and island Scotland holds the keys to our future prosperity. From renewable energy to sustainable and regenerative food production, from marine stewardship and nature restoration to rural innovation, these communities can lead Scotland’s transition to a greener, fairer economy.
The Scottish Greens believe rural and island communities deserve more than managed decline. We will invest in the infrastructure, services, and opportunities that allow people to build good lives wherever they live.
We will support farmers, crofters and land managers, alongside fishers and others who work at sea, to work with nature, not against it, ensuring our land and seas can sustain both people and planet for generations to come. We will ensure everyone can access affordable housing, reliable and fast connectivity, and quality public services regardless of their postcode.
Over the last five years, the Scottish Greens have secured much-needed investment in affordable rural and island housing, nature restoration and expanded community ownership. Now we need to go further. Our plan will revitalise rural and island economies, restore nature, reconnect communities through better transport, and ensure rural and island voices are heard in every decision affecting their future.
- Embed a Rural First approach to infrastructure investment, prioritising harder-to-reach communities including island communities, and ensuring policy and funding decisions are island-proofed from the outset.
- Introduce a Rural and Island Services Guarantee ensuring every community has access to essential banking, public transport and childcare within a reasonable distance.
- Guarantee high-quality healthcare through free and direct NHS delivery of dentistry in rural and island communities, starting with a pilot to address the current dentistry shortage in Shetland.
- Provide baseline funding for childcare provision in small communities and review rural childcare provision to ensure wraparound care is available to all.
- Support rural communities’ access to maternity services, by ensuring safe staffing levels on midwife-led maternity units and better funding for community-led maternity care to deliver routine appointments and support home births in rural areas.
- Fully utilise nurses and allied health professionals to ensure primary and routine healthcare is delivered locally in rural and island settings as far as is possible.
- Introduce a national £2 fare cap for bus services and invest in rural railways and ferry links, including opening new routes while working towards free bus travel for all.
- Deliver a Rural Housing Revolution with 2,700 new social homes in rural and island communities and tackling long-term empty properties to prioritise local housing needs over second homes and holiday lets. We will also support wider rural and island specific housing solutions, including community-led housing, local housing needs and demands assessments, flexible building standards, and funding models that reflect small scale, higher build costs and supply chain constraints.
- Fully embed the ‘Polluter Pays’ principle, with financial penalties for pollution and habitat damage, ringfenced for environmental restoration and the creation of a National Marine Litter Clean-up programme, recognising the disproportionate burden faced by island communities.
- Support farmer-owned, sustainable food supply chains through better support across rural and island communities, like the creation of local food hubs, regional processing sites and small abattoirs.
- Create rural jobs and ensure skills and training opportunities for our young people through expanding the Nature Restoration Fund and delivering sustainable multi-year funding to our two UNESCO biospheres.
- Increase the resilience and diversity of our forests and forestry sector, supporting local businesses, job creation, and training opportunities through more active management of forests.
- Develop Areas of Linguistic Significance in consultation with local communities so that areas with Gaelic speaking populations effectively receive the support required to keep the language growing.