Common Good Fund
United Kingdom legislation
A Common Good Fund is a fund held by a local authority in Scotland, consisting of property that previously belonged to a burgh. The fund may include both movable property (money or objects) and heritable property (land and buildings), and is legally distinct from other assets owned by the local authority. The funds have their origins in the 11th century, when the first burghs were established by royal charters that granted them certain lands, rights and privileges. The Common Good Act 1491 (c. 19), which remains in force, required that this property "be observed and kept for the common good of the town". The use and sale of Common Good is restricted by law, and the proceeds from these assets is retained in the relevant Common Good Fund. The income of a Common Good Fund is required to be used for the benefit of the inhabitants of the burgh to which they belong.
Since re-structuring of local government in 1975 and again in 1996, it is often not clear which property now comprises the Common Good of the former burghs. The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 required all councils to establish and maintain a register of property which is held by the authority as part of the common good.
According to land campaigner and former MSP Andy Wightman there are 196 Common Good Funds across Scotland.
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This entry incorporates text from “Common Good Fund” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.