THE King, J.K. Rowling, billionaires and politicians are among those who have been given tens of millions of pounds of taxpayer forestry subsidies, The Ferret can reveal, prompting claims that wealthy landowners are prioritised over rural communities.
Nearly 2000 recipients – including estates, investment firms and timber giants – were given £240 million to create and manage woodlands between April 2016 and December 2024, according to data we obtained from Scottish Forestry.
Top claimants of Scottish Government-issued taxpayer subsidies included the Duke of Buccleuch, a Scots MP, House of Lords peers and the Scottish Tory chair Alasdair Locke.
Others were Brewdog, a former Daily Mail chief, the Duke of Westminster, the Church of England, and a past chair of the Scottish Government’s investment arm.
There is no suggestion of wrongdoing from claimants. But land and forestry campaigners accused the Government of financing wealthy landowners rather than rural communities.
The subsidies, alongside a wide range of tax relief and the ability to sell carbon credits, have fuelled surging land prices, and some experts question the environmental benefits of industrial forestry.
But Scottish Forestry said handouts were “a vital driver” of the Government’s aim to cover 21% of Scotland with trees by 2032 and soak up carbon dioxide (CO2).
Half of applications were for smaller woodlands, and big commercial schemes were key to meeting green targets, the agency said.
Billionaires, landowners and politicians
GUERNSEY entrepreneur Julia Hands, who is reportedly worth £250m, received the most in subsidies of any individual – £3.8m. Hands’ private equity boss husband, Guy, also owns swathes of Scotland’s forests. In 2009, he left the UK for Guernsey, a tax haven, to avoid higher taxes.
WildLand Limited subsidiary, Glenfeshie Limited, was handed £1.5m. The firms belong to billionaire Anders Povlsen (below), Scotland’s biggest landowner and wealthiest person.
WildLand CEO Tim Kirkwood said the funding, alongside the firm’s own investment, focused on planting native trees to support “nature recovery”, “national climate change and biodiversity goals”, and new “economic and social opportunities” for local communities.
Fellow billionaire Mahdi Al Tajir’s Blackford Farms was given £1.3m. It is owned in the tax haven of Liechtenstein and last year overclaimed and misused public subsidies.
The Duke of Buccleuch’s Buccleuch Group, whose subsidiaries received £3.1m, told The Ferret it is playing a “key role” in helping the Scottish Government meet its annual target of increasing woodlands by 18,000 hectares.
Kinnaird Estate’s co-owner, Crawford Gillies – a Barclays director and former chair of government investment arm, Scottish Enterprise – netted £938,000, while Charles Sinclair, the former chief of a trust behind the Daily Mail, got £865,000.
Dornells Estate, which claimed £1.3m, belongs to James Jack, brother of the former Tory Scottish secretary, Alister Jack. He also is also a controller of the Annandale and Lochwood Estates partnership, which was awarded £746,000, but broke the rules by overclaiming or failing to start subsidised activity.
The partnership said Jack was involved in his capacity as a trustee of the Raehills Trust. “He is neither a beneficiary nor an owner of any of the properties or businesses within the partnership,” it added.
Other listed partners include the Earl of Annandale and Hartfell and his son, David, a NatureScot board member.
Landowning politicians in receipt of subsidies include millionaire LibDem MP Angus MacDonald via Doughty Hill (£1.85m), former Tory MSP and shadow land reform secretary Lord Donald Cameron, via Achnacarry Estate (£560,000), and Tory lord and former environment minister Baron Robbie Douglas Miller via Bavelaw Estate (£512,000).
Glenrinnes Farms’ owner Alasdair Locke, received £238,000. He gave £1.3m to the Tories, including £25,000 to Russell Findlay’s successful leadership campaign, after which he was appointed party chair. His firm breached subsidy rules by overclaiming and mismanaging land.
Other recipients included the King via Balmoral Estate (£403,000) and the Duke of Westminster (£469,000), whose family wealth is estimated at £10bn.
Investment firms and carbon credit developers
LAND expert Andy Wightman last year highlighted that France’s Woodland Invest, which was awarded £1.59m, put its extensive Scottish forestry portfolio up for sale. As the largest investor is France’s state investment bank, the Paris government stands to profit, Wightman pointed out.
The tax haven-linked investment giant, Gresham House, which was pledged £50m by the Scottish Government’s investment bank, got £4.6m. Other tax haven recipients include the British Virgin Islands-owned Balavil Estate, which got £670,000.
Some £1.5m went to Richard Davidson. He is a member of a wealth management firm for the super rich and The Forestry Partnership 2008.
In 2021, the partnership, which owns land in the Trossachs, asked the national park authority to let timber trucks run through a popular visitor site. The park refused, and faced legal action as a result. A spokesperson said the case was “paused for parties to negotiate”.
Forest owners can also sell carbon credits to buyers seeking to offset their carbon footprint.
In 2022, we found management firm Scottish Woodlands to be Scotland’s biggest developer of offsetting schemes, which can generate credits. It received £1.6m in subsidies.
Proponents say offsetting incentivises carbon capture and attracts private money. But critics argue it allows polluting corporations to “greenwash” their image.
Scottish Woodlands said its work supports national green objectives, provides rural jobs, and ensures “future UK timber security”. More than 70% of its woodland offsetting activity was for farmers and landowners, and less than 1% of its clients’ carbon credits had been sold on, a spokesperson claimed.
Brewdog planted around 500,000 trees to offset its own emissions as part of the subsidised Lost Forest near Aviemore. But around half died, and the beer giant – which was handed £1m – now deems it too expensive to be a carbon-negative company.
Access issues, community concerns and legal action
SOME recipients’ plantations have allegedly caused issues. In 2022, Thistlelane Limited, a firm controlled by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling – who was last year valued at £945m – was accused of blocking paths in the Borders. It won £706,000 in subsidies.
Ardnamurchan Estate received £1.1m. In 2021, locals – including Highland Council’s former leader – reported 17 locked gates on the estate, some allegedly within subsidised woodlands.
The obstructions were in an apparent breach of Scottish Forestry’s grant conditions, locals claimed. The estate faced a council legal bid to force the reopening of a path past its wood sheds – on land owned in a tax haven – but the action has been paused for negotiations.
In Langholm, Dumfriesshire, locals are campaigning against James Jones and Sons’ plans for a mainly Sitka spruce forest on a prominent hilltop. The timber giant is owned by the Bruce Jones family, who are valued at nearly £600m.
A community group, which won public funding to stop the spread of the self-seeding Sitka spruce on the neighbouring nature reserve, expressed bafflement at the firm’s subsidies, which total £3.4m.
What are they planting?
MORE than half of subsidies funded conifer plantations, while a further 8% supported “diverse” conifer forests. Less than a third went towards planting native trees.
The most-planted conifer is the North American Sitka spruce. We calculated that the tree, deemed “invasive” by some, makes up nearly half of Scotland’s forests.
If left unmanaged, it kills native species and threatens protected habitats vital to fight climate change.
But forestry bodies argue that Sitka absorbs carbon quickly, and is key to Scotland’s woodland growth and net zero targets.
A report from the Royal Society of Edinburgh last year urged Scottish Forestry to ditch subsidies and tax breaks for commercial conifer plantations, and instead fund native broadleaves, which, it argues, lock up more carbon and CO2, support more plant and animal species, and live far longer.
Scotland’s land ‘seen as a commodity’ SCOTTISH Labour’s rural affairs and land reform spokesperson, Rhoda Grant MSP, said subsidies are necessary “to promote sustainable forestry management and climate change mitigation”.
But she stressed: “Those with the means and resources to improve the land themselves should do so.
“Scotland’s land should not be seen as a commodity to avoid paying tax, nor should it be used as a financial asset or a tax-efficient investment.”
Grant added: “Landowners must use their land in a responsible way and those with the biggest pockets and biggest estates have the biggest onus to do so.”
The Forest Policy Group think tank said our findings exemplified the need for a review of the subsidies system as part of the Land Reform Bill in the Scottish Parliament.
“The Scottish Government has chosen not to channel money towards rural communities to build community wealth, or to stimulate small scale rural enterprise, through subsidised forestry,” said a spokesperson.
“Rather, it has opted to put money into the pockets of the already wealthy, many of whom are remote individuals and companies who have no interest in the people living in rural Scotland.”
Community Land Scotland’s Dr Josh Doble said he was “increasingly concerned by the power of forestry corporations, wealthy landowners and forestry investors within the Scottish land market”.
There was “a lack of transparency around environmental regulation and muted community engagement” around tree planting projects, he claimed.
“Commercial forestry can generate significant profits with money flowing to shareholders and being extracted out of local economies and the wider Scottish economy, especially where owners are based in foreign jurisdictions,” added Dr Doble.
“More of the wealth being generated needs to be captured locally with meaningful community benefit arrangements put in place”.
Scottish Forestry said subsidies were “a vital driver” of forest expansion and only a “contribution” to costs otherwise met by landowners. Half of applications went to small-scale woodland schemes, “mostly from farmers and crofters”.
“Large commercial schemes play an irreplaceable role in tackling climate change and achieving net zero, they support more than 34,000 mainly rural jobs and contribute more than £1.1bn to the Scottish economy each year,” said a spokesperson.
In 2023-24, Scotland created “the highest area of new woodland in 34 years, including a record 7700 hectares of native woodland,” which would not have been possible without subsidies, they added.
Every organisation and individual named in this article was approached for comment.
