The landscape of the Ettrick Forest
Todrig is a large area of heathland, wetlands and grasslands in the Scottish Borders. Steeped in history and part of the Ettrick Forest, Todrig was once a royal hunting ground with oak and hazel woods. Some moorlands and grasslands still survive, abundant with wildlife, and with picturesque lochans scattered across the landscape.
Semi-natural habitats lost to conifer plantations across the Southern Uplands
In 2021 the Scottish Government (via the SNIB) provided £50 million of taxpayer's money into Gresham House Forest Growth and Sustainability LP (owned by Searchlight Capital Partners, an American private equity firm), who according to the Registers of Scotland, acquired Todrig Farm for £12.2 million. One of the partners in this fund is the National Trust, a charity with aims to safeguard nature. A Scottish Government regulatory body, Scottish Forestry later determined an Environmental Impact Assessment was not required for a proposed 1,000-acre plantation at Todrig. Of the planted area, 85% is commercial conifers, mostly Sitka spruce. Adjacent to Todrig is Whitslaid, the site of another proposed plantation for 1,700 acres of mostly Sitka spruce. If both schemes are approved, this would result in a contiguous, predominantly Sitka spruce monoculture plantation of 2,700 acres or 11 square kilometres.
This will lead to a permanent loss of heather moorland, wetlands and grasslands, further devastating the flora and fauna of the Southern Uplands.
Secrecy by Scottish Forestry: favouring investors over rural communities
Scottish Forestry claim ‘communities can offer valuable knowledge and insights that can be of great assistance when formulating forest management or woodland creation proposals’. Scottish Forestry informed stakeholders for Todrig on 4 March 2025 that the 28-day public consultation would run until 1 April 2025, but failed to mention the EIA had already been ‘screened out’ (not required) on 23 December 2024, a month before the woodland creation application was registered and accepted by Scottish Forestry in January 2025.
Todrig farmhouse, originally a tower house dating to the 1600s.
Our campaign
We believe and will argue that Scottish Forestry failed to follow the required protocols when assessing the application for this forestry project by Euroforest Silviculture (previously named Pryor and Rickett Silviculture) on behalf of Gresham House Forest Growth & Sustainability LP. It appears Scottish Forestry failed to give due consideration to stakeholders and in particular the local community, including those represented by Lilliesleaf, Ashkirk and Midlem Community Council, in determining that an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was not required. It also seems to us that Scottish Forestry have since 1 April 2019, failed to comply with the Forestry (EIA) (Scotland) Regulations 2017, by not publishing its EIA ‘screening opinion’ documents online.
Petition for judicial review lodged with Court of Session, Edinburgh
We are pleased to announce that our solicitors, Balfour and Manson, have lodged a Petition for Judicial Review on 25 April 2025, as we believe the decision by Scottish Forestry to ‘screen out’ an EIA on 23 December 2024 was unlawful.
We are initially campaigning to raise a minimum of £10,000 to pay for the legal costs of this Judicial Review with the Court of Session, Edinburgh. If we are granted permission for a substantive hearing, we hope to raise an additional amount to challenge the decision by Scottish Forestry to determine no EIA was required. We hope that if an EIA is required, Scottish Forestry will refuse consent for the proposed woodland creation scheme.
We hope this campaign, and others such as the Stobo Hope campaign, will lead the Scottish Government to reconsider the current policy of putting the interests of investors before the environment and rural communities.
Funding
There is uncertainty over the total costs of our challenge, and we may regain some of these funds in the event of a judicial review being successful. Donations will be used only for legal expenses. We will retain any excess funds from your donations to help cover future legal costs for challenging (if there are good grounds for doing so) commercial coniferous forestry schemes in Scotland which threaten valuable wildlife habitats.
Media articles of interest
We are grateful to the following authors and publications for their coverage of Todrig and matters pertaining to wider forestry policy in Scotland.
‘SNP Bank slips £50 million of public money to firm linked to tax avoidance’, Scottish Business News, 31 January 2022.
Vicky Allan, ‘Scotland needs new forest environment impact process’, The Herald, 20 March 2025.
Katharine Hay, ‘Plans for 500-hectare Scottish plantation lodged as forestry called 'inherent risk' to community’, The Scotsman, 27 March 2025.
Vicky Allan, ‘Scottish Sitka planting schemes created ‘almost by stealth’, The Herald, 6 April 2025.
‘Black grouse at risk as plans to plant open Scottish moorland with conifers advance’, Shooting Times and Country, 9 April 2025.
Contact: [email protected]