The Politics of the Mundane

Fort Kinnaird retail park, and there are no end of places to park your car but bikes are not wanted. At least not if you want to leave them securely. Because it is not the case there is a long line of bike racks just out of shot. Or even just one. Even although it is just a short bike ride up from the centre of Portobello. And there aren't just shops to visit - there's a cinema too. Which you'd think might have customers arriving by bike, if there was a secure place to leave one.
 
But it isn't just the politics of transport. The whole complex is also a potent example of the whole issue of landownership that is the subject of much attention in Scotland at the moment. I had believed it was solely owned by the Crown Estate, which was keeping hold of it even although the control of the rest of the Crown Estate in Scotland is being devolved to the Scottish Parliament. Which seemed disappointing. Checking it out, it turns out that the shopping park is actually owned by The Gibraltar Limited Partnership, which appears to be registered in central London, was set up in 2007 and is owned 50/50 by the Crown Estate and Hercules Unit Trust. The Hercules Unit Trust is registered in the Channel Islands, was set up in 2000 and specialises in retail warehouses and shopping parks. And that is just the start of it all - a veritable web of trusts and partnerships and companies appear to 'own' the retail park. Frequently in apparently circular ways. Not really knowing much about it all, it is nevertheless hard not to think this is deliberately complicated to make the actual ownership of the site as obscure as possible and thereby avoid the appropriate levels of taxation that should be liable.
 
Which is where the Our Land Festival comes in. Quoting from their website, "Our Land is an initiative created by Common Weal, Women for Independence, Scottish Land Action Movement, Radical Independence, land reform campaigners Andy Wightman and Lesley Riddoch. Administrative help has been volunteered by Laura-May Kennedy of Common Weal Angus. 'Our Land aims to highlight the problems of dereliction in cities and emptiness in the countryside that flow from an elitist system of land ownership that allows a handful of individuals, quangos, insurance companies and trusts based in offshore tax havens to dictate the price, availability and use of land in Scotland – from the remotest islands to the busiest city centres.'"
 
So next time you visit a big out of town shopping centre, have a thought for who actually owns it, and where the money goes...