Dr John Watt OBE PhD MA(hons) made a significant contribution to community development working in the Highlands and Islands, initially supporting establishment of community co-operatives and ultimately in community land ownership.
John Watt was brought up in Inverness, where he attended Inverness Royal Academy. After graduating from Aberdeen University, he worked as a voluntary teacher in Malawi, and then undertook a postgraduate qualification in Canada before returning to the Scottish Highlands.
In the 1980s John Watt worked for the Highlands and Islands Development Board (HIDB) as a community co-operative field officer. His remit was to advise and support communities in the highland mainland of Scotland, covering Highland, Argyll and Bute and Moray Council areas, as part of the HIDB Community Co-operative Scheme (known as Co-chomunn in Gaelic). The programme offered support and funding for the establishment of community co-operatives and enabled the creation of over a hundred self-sustaining community owned enterprises throughout the Highlands and Islands. When the scheme ended in 1989 John Watt continued to work for the HIDB and its successor, Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE). In 1997 he set up HIE’s Community Land Unit (CLU) to assist communities to acquire and manage land assets. The CLU was modelled on the Community Co-operative Scheme, with similar field officer and financial support for asset-based community development. In 2010 John Watt was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to community development in the Highlands and Islands. He retired as Director of Strengthening Communities at HIE in 2012.
From 2012 to 2021, John Watt chaired the Scottish Land Fund committee, which assisted communities across Scotland to acquire land and property. He was also a vice chair of the Scottish Government's Land Reform Review Group, a member of the Scottish Committee of the BIG Lottery, and a non-executive director of New Start Highland, a social enterprise based in his home town of Inverness.