Tax-break trees Butterfly beats back plan that grows wealth for the rich

In the English-Scottish border a small species of butterfly, the northern brown argus, has fended off one of the biggest investors in Britain.

- Lauren Almeida

Todrig, with its heath moorlands and hundreds of species of flora and fauna, represents an investment that could save Britain’s wealthiest families millions of pounds in inheritance tax. But first the ground needs to be cleared and sown with commercial tree saplings - a plan that has been defeated, for now, by the tiny butterfly.

“No one wants this,” said Camilla Fowler, who chairs the local Lilliesleaf, Ashkirk and Midlem community council. “This kind of forestry scars the landscape and replaces it with monocultural, dark trees that harm our biodiversity.”

Todrig, which is about 580 hectares (1,433 acres), is the site of one of many battles unfolding along the border as big investors move in on vast expanses of land that can be stripped back and replanted for the mass production of timber.

The “vulnerable” status of the northern brown argus halted plans for a forest plantation in Todrig after a legal challenge forced the local environmental regulator to carry out more checks.

But Gresham House, the £11bn City of London investor that bought the land for £12m in 2022 - six times its price only three years before - is still aiming to turn it into a tree farm.

Now, as demand for these tax-break trees grows, campaigners are warning that investors are in danger of putting further strain on natural grassland and forests in Britain.

Lucrative business

David Lintott, a barrister who has led the legal campaign against the forestry plan at Todrig via his company Restore Nature, said: “There is an enormous difference between Sitka spruce trees and native woodland, and other types of habitats such as meadows and calcareous grassland in terms of the wildlife they support.”