Scottish property sales reach highest peak

Aspects of Scotland's property market are all too familiar to Irish buyers. The prices get higher and higher for apartments and houses in and around Edinburgh, much as they do in Dublin. However what is unusual about Scotland is that there is also a lively market in mountains.

This year alone, the highest mountain in Britain, Ben Nevis, was sold for £500,000 sterling while an entire range on the Isle of Skye is on the market at £10 million, with another peak dear to climbers' hearts on offer in the far north. This may appear like a quaint foible of the Scots, but the trading of large blocks of wild scenery provokes heated passions which the Scottish Executive plans to address in legislation.

Ben Nevis towers 4,400 ft above sea level and is the most famous peak in Scotland. A wide path allows tourists to climb it, but in bad weather and winter it is a challenge. The mountain has its own tourist industry, with an estimated half a million visitors each year sustaining the town of Fort William at its foot.

The owners, a private family, decided to sell this summer, saying they were concerned for the preservation of the wild spaces surrounding Ben Nevis. An environmental body, the John Muir Trust, bought the mountain and parts of the nearby glen.

However, the trust has only limited resources and when another mountain in the north-west of Scotland, called An Teallach - the anvil - was put on the market a month later, it could not buy it. The famous mountain, and 5,800 acres attached, remain up for grabs at £2.2 million.

Scots are far from happy that their mountains can be traded like semi-detached houses. The sale of Ben Nevis was like announcing that Edinburgh Castle was on offer to the highest bidder. Land ownership is a highly contentious issue as it is associated with the real or imagined oppression of the people in previous centuries.

Landowners in the 19th Century cleared people off the huge estates to make way for sheep. Many died or emigrated as a result. This instance, known as the Clearances, is comparable with the famine in Irish history in that it has become an emotive symbol for the injustices of the past. Ever since, there have been campaigns to curb the powers of large landowners.

When John McLeod of McLeod announced he wanted to sell the Cuillin Mountains on Skye, it was greeted with outrage. The Cuillins are a range of hard rock peaks, notorious as the toughest climbing in the British Isles. Campaigners and politicians attempted to show that Mr McLeod didn't technically own the mountains, while others mocked his price tag of £10 million.

The Scottish Executive has attempted to address the charged issue of how land in the Highlands is owned and managed in a Land Reform Bill due to be debated by the Scottish parliament. In the 1970s land nationalisation was in vogue but now the proposals focus on helping communities buy estates when they come on the market.

However, Mr McLeod's dreams of seeing bare rock transformed into piles of cash appear to be premature. The estate agent handling the deal, FPD Savill, says no closing date has been set on the sale and there is no likelihood of one in the near future.