Common good property

Common good property is a specific type of property that:

• was originally owned by a burgh, which was a type of administrative body that existed in Scotland until 1975
• is now owned by the local authority for that area

When something has this status, it means that:

• it's held for the 'common good' of citizens
• there are rules on how it can be used or sold

Types of common good property

Common good property can be:

• land
• buildings
• furniture
• art
• cash, in cases where property has been sold or income received

The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 created specific common good responsibilities for Scottish local authorities.

Under this legislation, Stirling Council must:

• consult the public about common good property in our former burghs
• create and maintain a register of common good property that the public can view

You can find out more about our responsibilities by reading the Scottish Government's statutory guidance for local authorities.

Audit and consultation

There are 5 former burghs in the Stirling Council area. These are:

• Bridge of Allan
• Callander
• Doune
• Dunblane
• Stirling

When the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 became law, our Legal and Estates teams:

• carried out an audit of council-owned properties in these areas
• created a list of possible common good property

In 2021, we shared this list on Engage Stirling and asked members of the public to:

• comment on the items
• suggest other land and property which should be classed as common good

What happens next

We’re currently checking consultation responses to see if the suggested items should be classed as common good property.

This process will take some time, especially where the checks involve historical records like:

• minutes of burgh council meetings
• newspaper articles

However, once we’ve completed checks for a small number of items, we’ll add a register of common good property to this site.

We’ll update our register as we go through the full list of suggested items.