HAS an SNP conference ever been held at a more momentous time?

Not only will next month’s online gathering be the first against a backdrop of consistent Yes poll majorities, it’ll also provide the first glimpse of constituency candidates fighting next May’s Holyrood elections, the first chance for a digital sniff of likely manifesto commitments, the first to (probably) have the final details of a Brexit deal (or No Deal) and so the first opportunity for Nicola Sturgeon to unveil a detailed post-Brexit, pre-indyref2 strategy. It’ll also be the first conference overshadowed by unprecedented human drama – the bust-up between two SNP leaders and the disruption caused by the Covid pandemic.

All of this heady momentum will be funnelled into an online event with high expectations but also weary anticipation that the usual control-freakery of the SNP leadership will be heightened by the proximity of elections and the siren charms of the mute button. With a virtual conference, challenge and disruption may become nigh on impossible.

So even though there are big currents running and vitally important issues to discuss, most old hands won’t be holding their collective breath about the chances of thorough, rumbustious policy discussion at the end of November – the scheduled Plan B debate and elections to the ruling NEC notwithstanding.

And that will be a big disappointment to Yessers inside the SNP and without.

Because there’s a backlog of policy stuff that can’t wait – a logjam of really fundamental problems that should be aired at SNP conference but almost inevitably won’t be, despite generally useful motions by well-meaning branches.

Take the Rural Stimulus Plan outlined in last weekend’s Sunday National – a 24-point plan to spend £12 billion over 10 years to transform rural Scotland.

Assembled by Deeside and Upper Donside branch, it has some eye-catching elements. Yes, creating a Scottish version of Spain’s upmarket parador hotels to maintain at-risk historic buildings might work – though probably at the expense of existing establishments.

More bread-and-butter proposals are in there too, like a Rural Housing Renewal Scheme to help young people “bring derelict buildings in rural areas back into use as homes”.

But here’s the snag.

The 2016 Land Reform Act introduced a community right to buy abandoned, neglected or detrimental land which, to my knowledge, no-one has tried to use, even though there are 12,000 hectares of vacant and derelict land in Scotland – the equivalent of 9000 football pitches.

Why has this existing new right to buy apparently failed to solve the problem? Perhaps renovating a derelict house is more likely to appeal to individuals than a whole community. But still there are snags. Much derelict land isn’t actually on the market. Owners are hanging on, sometimes speculating, sometimes just hesitant to let go. So how would the Rural Stimulus Plan get derelict property onto the market?

Holyrood’s Local Government Committee has backed the idea of a Compulsory Sales Order (CSO) – a new power for councils loath to exercise compulsory purchase powers, lest they wind up with lots of unsaleable broken-down buildings on their books. The CSO gets around that fear by letting councils simply order that a sale must happen – or at least it would if the Scottish Government hadn’t shelved legislation, ostensibly because of the Covid pandemic.

But if the CSO finds its way on to the statute books – two more snags. A forced auction will probably see derelict property go to the highest bidder, not to needy young locals and since VAT applies to renovation, young folk would in any case be better off giving attractive wrecks a wide berth and heading instead for truly affordable low-build housing or self-built new homes on affordable plots of land.

Yet, if they try that, they will inevitably be outbid by wealthier folk who may only use the house as a second home – a massive, urgent problem this plan does little to tackle.

A YEAR ago, I wrote about three Highland friends living together in someone else’s second home on Skye. All three had jobs, but nowhere to live when the owner finally needed her house back.

Why? There are 300 properties on Airbnb on Skye and virtually no long-term lets. That means NHS and teaching jobs can’t be filled, and beds for hospitality staff working in cafes and hotels were impossible to find before lockdown – even in spare rooms. According to National Records of Scotland figures, most islands around Scotland are in the same boat. Some 10% of island households are second homes, compared to the 1% Scottish average.

Skye also has a disproportionate number of young tourism workers who are self-employed or on minimum wage, zero-hour contracts. They have no chance of getting a mortgage – ever.

The average home on the Isle of Skye Property Centre website is around £185k – higher than almost everywhere else in rural Scotland and totally beyond the reach of young folk.

So, what happened to the three lasses sharing that holiday home?

They had to move out earlier this year, at the same time that the house next door was bought by folk who hadn’t been to Skye before and plan to let it to holidaymakers. Galling in the extreme. Two of the friends are sharing a £750 a month ex-council house elsewhere on the island – but must move again in June – and one lass recently put in an offer for a house within her price range – offers over £155k. The place had no water supply, hence the “low” price. Her bid was £9k over the asking price – but it was the second-lowest bid.

And so it goes on and on. And so it will do until truly urgent, transformational action is taken to deal with all the uncomfortable realities that arise from a land ownership system that’s been untaxed and unregulated for far too long.

Almost a fifth of Scotland is managed for grouse shooting but the long-awaited Werritty Report was a damp squib. Will that vast acreage remain effectively beyond use for conservation, rewilding and new human communities?

Most rural areas are in relentless decline. Although Skye has seen a recent population increase, today’s total (10k) is way down on the 15,800 recorded in 1801. Compare and contrast the Faroe Islands (with a smaller landmass than Skye), which had 15k souls in 1900 but sits at a healthy 52k today.

IS Skye in some way unable to match the human capacity of 18 barren islands sitting on the edge of the Arctic Circle? Or have the (almost) self-governing Faroese been able to put their own people first every step of the way, whilst rural Scots have had to wait for first Westminster and now Holyrood to shift the dial in their favour?

In Norway, first homes cannot legally be sold to second home owners. To buy a holiday home in Denmark or New Zealand, first homes must also be registered in the country too. In Sri Lanka, new housing near beaches must be majority-owned by citizens.

Across the world, the governments of normal countries have acted to constrain the land and housing markets and protect their own citizens.

So, the Scottish Government must first and foremost do what every politician in Britain appears to dread. It must intervene in the housing and land markets like our neighbours, even though their problems of land and rural housing supply are nowhere near as grim as those experienced every day in quasi-feudal Scotland.

Will the Rural Stimulus Plan be meaty enough to really transform these stuck problems of rural life?

Yes, the plan does talk about a Land Value Tax, but the SNP voted that option down when it had the opportunity.

It talks of renewing the commitment to one million acres in community ownership - but two bold buyout projects in Morvern and Langholm could be forced to hand back cash awarded by the Scottish Land Fund on Saturday if they can’t raise the extra millions needed to clinch their deals.

Astonishing public support means Langholm at least looks set to go ahead - which is an incredible achievement. But it also means the Duke of Buccleuch will be around £4.2m richer. Yip - the market valuation of empty moorland acres in Scotland is that impossibly high.

We cannot democratise Scotland’s land by buying it expensive acre by acre.

So, the Rural Stimulus Plan looks doomed to repeat the same dismal dance young rural Scots know only too well – one step forward and three steps back.

I can only hope I am wrong.