Langholm Moor sale and the aristocracy | Letter

Surely the more equitable process would be for such lands to be transferred to an appropriately established community trust at no cost, writes Harvey Sanders

Your article on the community buyout of part of Langholm Moor in Scotland, presently owned by the Duke of Buccleuch (Scottish village buys large part of Langholm Moor from Duke of Buccleuch, 2 November), avoids the fundamental question of the ethics of such aristocratic hereditary landowners profiting from the sale of land that was, in most cases, originally granted to their forebears by the then monarch (understood to have been James II in the case of the Buccleuch estate).

Surely a more equitable process would be for such lands to be transferred to an appropriately established community trust at no cost, rather than relying on public donations and money from a government-established fund. The present owners and their predecessors will have enjoyed centuries of rents and other benefits deriving from their ownership of the freely bestowed land.