Altnabreac Railway Land - is precedent being set?

 Thought for the day - 25th April 2025

Who really owns the railways of Scotland?
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This is a reworking of an earlier comment I’ve placed on the Altnabreac Uncovered channel when I posed the question ‘does Solum exist only once a building is built, or is it always there waiting to be built on?’ If it is the latter, then I could see how someone could believe that they had inherited Solum Rights for a large area. What they could actually do with those rights is a whole different ball game.

We are often told that in Scottish land law, "Solum" is defined as the ground beneath a building or the area on which a building is constructed.

The problem for the layman, and an English layman at that, is that if the definition [of Solum] is so straightforward why hasn’t the Sheriff said, ‘there are no other buildings around Station Cottage for you to have inherited the Solum of hence I will not entertain your claim any further’?

"does Solum exist only once a building is built, or is it always there waiting to be built on?"

So, to me, as an English layman, it did feel that there was a deeper, more classical meaning to the term Solum, that went beyond the convenience of the modern definition and harks back to the dark days of Scottish feudal servitude, in other words 1999.

Sometimes it takes an outsider to turn group think on its head and possibly, just possibly, Ms Howe is that outsider with her interpretation of whatever deed it is they’ve unearthed.

What I’ve taken from the 1979 document is that Solum is more than just the area underneath a building and what the 2nd Viscount Thurso was selling to his son, when it came to the railway land at Altnabreac, was the underlying rights to the very ground on which the railway stood.

Selling your son his inheritance
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Now I do not believe for one minute that the 3rd Viscount Thurso has sold these rights on, such that they are now invested in the owners of Station Cottage. But, as I posted under my “big question” picture, if NR doesn’t own the Solum Rights to the land on which the railway runs then who does and, as someone else asked, does it matter?

Minds much better than mine have assured us that feudal land ownership in Scotland, and with it the concept of Solum Rights, ended with The Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Act 2000, which came into force on November 28, 2004. But has that assertion ever been tested?

What we do know is that when the authorities were forced to shut Altnabreac Station in 2023 they set up a “Multi Agency Group” to address the access issue [to the station]. Did this Group suddenly realise that they had a potentially bigger problem with Solum ownership claims across the Scottish Railway network? [On the assumption that the original landowner’s decision to retain Solum ownership at Altnabreac was not unique.]

We also know that the Scottish Legal System and ScotRail are all part of the Scottish Government and so has someone, somewhere decided to spend some money and get to the bottom of this, presumably because it could have ramifications elsewhere.

I believe Station Cottage is going to be used to set precedent, and this is why the Sheriff is giving H&A plenty of time to build their case so that, when ultimately he shoots it out the water, his decision will be seen to be beyond reproach.

The big question, and the answer isn't 42
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