Sir

I welcome the plan to bring vacant and derelict land into use (TSF Dec 1).

The most effective way to achieve this is for the government to make those who own such land pay an annual charge equal to its rental value. This is known as Annual Ground Rent (AGR) or Land Value Tax (LVT). At present derelict land makes no contribution to the funds needed by governments, local and national, to provide services such as education, health and welfare, policing and road maintenance, all of which are suffering from insufficient funding.

Collecting the Annual Ground Rent on derelict land would encourage its owners to use it or sell it to someone who would. There would be no need to spend scarce public money for compulsory purchase. The rental value of land depends on its location, and valuations could easily be made by comparisons with similar land in the same locations.

I would like to see all the funds for the necessary functions of government collected from the AGR of all land, urban and rural. This would result in land being used for its optimal permitted productive purpose and allow us to abolish the taxes which are so detrimental to employment and enterprise, such as Income Taxes and Vat.

As a landowning farmer, I see this radical tax reform as the only way for farming to prosper without subsidies which, contrary to popular belief, do not reduce our costs of production or reduce the cost of food for consumers. Their main effect is to increase the market price of land which means that young newcomers are kept out of farming independently.

I estimate that our farm business would benefit because AGR would be paid according to our ability to pay since it is based on the productive capacity of the land. The Income Taxes paid by the business on behalf of our employees have to be paid whether we make a profit or not.

Duncan Pickard,

Straiton Farm,

Balmullo.