This article was first published in Scotland on Sunday on Sunday 20 September 2026
Dr Josh Doble
It’s 20 years since Anders Holch Povlsen, a Danish billionaire, became a landowner in Scotland. In the two decades since that first purchase Povlsen and his company WildLand Ltd have bought 13 Scottish estates totalling around 220,000 acres.
Povlsen is now the biggest private landowner in Scotland and by some accounts the largest private landowner in the UK.
A testament to the failure of land reform in Scotland to meaningfully regulate land markets and ownership.
Our situation is in stark contrast to Denmark and other European countries where strategic land use planning, state-led land banking and regulation of land purchases are the norm. Povlsen’s estates stretch from Glenfeshie in the Cairngorms to Lochaber, Aldourie Castle at Loch Ness to his most extensive landholdings in north Sutherland.
He has developed a reputation as an ardent rewilder as well as exercising influence over important local decisions and looking to continually buy more property.
In fact, this week WildLand have made their expansionism clear with the purchase of the Kinross House Estate on Loch Leven meaning their ownership now reaches into central Scotland.
WildLand’s land management is widely reported as improving the ecological condition of Povlsen’s estates, something which should be celebrated.
Yet, we must also recognise WildLand’s contradictions and the corresponding social, economic and cultural ramifications of one billionaire being able to make significant decisions over a large part of Scotland.
Similarly, Povlsen has invested in re-developments at Dores Inn and Aldourie Castle Hotel and has established luxury tourism destinations at these and other locations which employ people.
However, the wider accessibility of these re-developed sites is questionable when costs can run to over £1000 per head for a single night.
By contrast, almost 50 of the 110,743 households in the Highlands experience fuel poverty. Povlsen’s landowership raises some fundamental questions for Scotland: How much land should any one person own?
What are the consequences of monopoly ownership and how do the authorities scrutinise landowner’s actions? Should we accept the ‘philanthropy’ of global elites to address our pressing land management issues?
Povlsen is noteworthy as Scotland’s largest landowner and the ways in which he has used his finances and landholdings to wield considerable power. But he is just the latest and one of the most powerful examples of much that is wrong with our landownership system.
Povlsen and WildLand can act as a lens to understand the systemic failing of our government and public bodies to provide oversight and scrutiny of private landownership.
He is also the exemplar of what a Scottish Land Commission (SLC) report described as monopoly power’, where a landowner controls access to an area’s resources or assets.
In working with communities in the north of Scotland, Community Land Scotland has found there is reluctance to speak openly about Povlsen and his Highland fiefdom.
We have spoken to many people on and around various Povlsen landholdings, asking for honest and balanced views on WildLand’s activities and engagement. Few were forthcoming to discuss his land management style and influence.
This is nothing new. For centuries in Scotland, there has been a socio-cultural dynamic of not questioning landed power due to the material impact on people’s livelihoods.
This is something which community landownership has done much work to challenge in recent decades.
There is also recognition that Povlsen is investing money and creating employment opportunities in areas that have suffered under neglectful and absentee landlords for centuries. A local resident told us that Povlsen is committing to projects and the future whilst other big landowners leave buildings to fall apart and allow the land to be overgrazed and destroyed.
However, many of the more critical voices on the Povlsen estates, say they cannot speak publicly because of the direct and indirect power the landowner has in the community, from employment to contracts, leases or tied housing.
Research by the SLC has shown that concentrated landownership is an impediment to resilient economic development and causes significant and long-term harm to the communities affected. Povlsen’s monopoly landownership in north Sutherland seems to be a case in point.
WildLand has provided £10.5million of funding to help establish a Health and Social Care Centre in Tongue, which will be owned by WildLand and leased back to NHS Highland and Highland Council. The funding was part of a deal to move the care centre out of Tongue so as not to obscure the view from his luxury hotel.
WildLand will take ownership of the original site next to Lundies House from the Council, a move that has been criticised by someTongue locals, who fear the green space will not be available for community use.
A demonstration of the power imbalance between the financial resources of WildLand and local public bodies. Another flashpoint was around the development of the Sutherland spaceport to be built on Melness Crofters Land but opposed by Povlsen who later supported a rival spaceport development in Shetland by investing £1.45 million via his company, Wild Ventures Ltd.Remarkably, a Scottish Land Court ruling noted that three crofters who had objected to the Sutherland development were being funded by Povlsen – a nod to private wealth seeking to influence public decision making.
Many can see Povlsen simply has too much power over the future of too many people.
The shocking issue here is not so much that a large landowner is acting unilaterally and stifling dissent. Instead, it is the systemic failure of successive Scottish Governments and local authorities to actively step in to address power imbalances such as this.
The unregulated Scottish land market and inaction of public bodies and authorities have allowed Povlsen to buy 220,000 acres with minimal restrictions and no public oversight.
Without local voices speaking up about the issues it is difficult for the necessary interventions to break monopoly power, and without intervention it becomes even harder for local people to speak out. This cycle of silence needs to be broken.
It should be recognised that WildLand has engaged in strategic collaborative work such as the Regional Land Use Partnership NorthWest2045, and they are the major shareholder of North Coast 500.
Similarly, their housing development for staff in Tongue has a stated commitment for two houses to be used by the local development trust.
Such signs of engagement and community enabling should be encouraged, and indeed much strengthened.
So, what next for WildLand and Povlsen in Scotland? They are 20 years into a 200-year vision.
Will the next 180 years provide more equitable and democratic opportunities for local people? We would welcome a discussion with Mr Povlsen and WildLand Ltd to understand their community engagement, the durability of their long-term plans and their commitment to community development.
We would be pleased to see efforts being made to work more collaboratively, including sharing financial and other benefits with local communities, providing access to land and resources for others and halting their continual expansion without clear public interest justifications for it.
So, is billionaire ownership of land the best our communities can hope for? Surely, we can do better. The new Land Reform Act could make some helpful changes if implemented robustly and quickly, including a new Land and Communities Commissioner to facilitate dialogue and an ability to lot large landholdings over 1000ha that come to the open market.
A clear case should be made if Povlsen seeks to buy further estates. Yet the circumstances in which the Government would intervene like this are highly specific – Ministers will need to be bold. WildLand will need to produce Land Management Plans under the new legislation and demonstrate how they are engaging with the local community.
This may provide a much- needed mechanism for more public oversight, but the monitoring and regulation of these Plans will be essential.
What is really needed to level the playing field is a government who are willing to take on monopoly landowners and the power of the market.
We have long called for a Public Interest Test to assess buyers of land purchases over 500ha, as have the SLC in response to their investigation of concentrated ownership.
If Povlsen wishes to keep amassing land in Scotland it stands to reason that there should be more stringent public oversight over whether that serves the needs of local communities and the wider public interest. Evidence from the past twenty years indicates that we shouldn’t take it for granted that big landowners deliver on either front.
In response, a spokesperson from WildLand said: “Our team are 20 years into a 200-year commitment to Scotland’s people and its landscape.
“Our purpose is to care for, and share in the recovery of our natural landscapes, buildings and environments within the areas of Scotland in which we operate. We are currently playing our part to deliver shared environmental and community goals with our partners including the local community, NGO’s and the Scottish Government.
“This investment in the land and its people, building resilience both in the environment and its heritage, is something we take very seriously and we will continue to do so in the interests of the communities, contractors, and landscapes we are proud to call home.
“WildLand’s door is open to all community groups and we welcome anyone who wants to learn about our work firsthand. “
‘The Scottish land market has allowed Scotland’s richest man to buy 220,000 acres with minimal restrictions’ – The Scotsman
- josh@communityland.scot