Community ownership of land in Scotland is a big issue, and one that is getting tougher to achieve and maintain in the current economic maelstrom. Small rural communities can find it difficult to gain access to all the information they need without getting overwhelmed by the tide of news and comment. That's where the Scottish Community Land Network comes in...

We have created a web-portal that acts as a digest for all things related to the management of community-based assets, and has over 700 members. We collate news and views into a monthly bulletin sent by email to all members and facilitate the communication between members by providing the means and space for people to safely get in touch with each other within the network. Facebook it aint, but we have developed the site to provide a wide range of opportunities for networking and learning more about managing assets for the benefit of the community.

As well as generating the content for the site we have developed the 'portal' from scratch using Joomla and a range of open-source extensions. We produced the design template and have created a range of multimedia functions including video hosting, downloadable MP3 (not-quite podcasts!) files, as well as a forum and messaging service for members.

The website can be found at : www.communityland.org.uk

Client: Highlands and Islands Enterprise