Amendment to our Scotsman opinion piece – 31st October 2024

1 November 2024

In an opinion piece in The Scotsman our Policy Manager Josh Doble commented about land value uplifts on Highlands Rewilding estates, these comments have been retracted with a full explanation below.

In response to our mistaken conclusion about Highlands Rewilding’s landholding valuation in my Scotsman opinion piece, we have been talking with Highlands Rewilding and have produced the following joint statement:

“A mistaken conclusion published by Community Land Scotland (CLS) in The Scotsman suggests a 47% hike in land prices by Highlands Rewilding Ltd (HRL) since 2023. HRL land sales, which are specifically designed to deliver nature restoration and community prosperity in perpetuity, are effectively being priced to cover costs only. CLS regrets having made what it now understands to be a mistaken conclusion about the position by using only the information provided by the HRL accounts at Companies House. Learning from this unfortunate experience, from now on the two organisations commit to work together on the basis of greater mutual transparency consistent with their shared vision of community-centred nature recovery, albeit via very different routes. For the benefit of those interested in the detail, relevant financial data will soon be available on the Highlands Rewilding website. This is a level of financial transparency which HRL is not obliged to provide but which it volunteers for and would have provided to CLS if asked. CLS welcomes HRL publishing further information on their landholdings and finances. HRL have made clear it will show, as they have said all along, that they will in no way “profiteer” from these land sales.”

We accept that our conclusion was mistaken. We thought that in the interests of transparency and demonstrating how this mistake was made, we would explain how we arrived at the 47% increase in sale value:

The HRL estates are advertised at a combined, offers over £10.91m; Bunloit – £2.2m, Beldorney (described as Glass in the advert) – £5m, and Tayvallich – £3.71m.
The 31.3.23 HRL accounts report the position before the purchase of Tayvallich. They show that Galbraiths valued HRL landholdings at £4.9m on 4.4.23.
In the 31.3.22 accounts which were filed in Dec 22 there is a note to the effect that the purchases of Beldorney and Bunloit “were completed post year end”. We therefore drew a reasoned conclusion that both estates were bought by HRL sometime between Mar 22 and Dec 22.
We further noted that companies are required to report significant events that occur after their year-end but before the directors sign off the accounts. In the 31.3.23 accounts, note 9 is headed up; Events After the Reporting Date (i.e. 31.3.23). This note was silent on the issue of Bunloit ownership. Though it makes reference to the Tayvallich purchase, the crowdfunding exercise and loan monies put in by investors.
On this basis we formed the reasoned conclusion that both estates were reflected in the figures reported in the March 2023 accounts.
Bunloit & Beldorney are now being put on the market at combined offers over £7.2m. Thus, we calculated a £2.3m, 47% uplift in value since April 2023.

However, HRL brought to our attention that Bunloit North was not in their ownership at 4.4.23 and we accept that our calculation was mistaken.

We welcome continued discussion with Highlands Rewilding and others about the ways in which people-centred ecological regeneration can be funded and furthered around Scotland.

Information:

Dr Josh Doble is our Policy Manager