Kicker: Lucrative Government grants prompting action
By Abi Kay
LANDLORDS seeking to take land back for tree planting have been frightening tenants with notices to quit.
The Tenant Farmers' Association (TFA) group urged Agricultural Holdings Act (AHA) tenants to make themselves aware of their legal rights, which prevent landlords from using incontestable notices to quit in order to plant trees, but warned those on Farm Business Tenancy (FBT) agreements could be more vulnerable.
TFA chief executive George Dunn said the push to plant trees was putting pressure on land availability in the tenanted sector, with Defra offering lucrative grants for woodland creation and outside investors looking to buy up land to offset carbon emissions.
Landlords with tenants occupying on traditional Agricultural Holdings Act tenancies will not be able to take land back for tree planting in most cases without the consent of the tenant, he said.
While legislation does provide a route for landlords to take land back for non-agricultural use for which planning consent has been obtained, using a special incontestable notice to quit, this does not apply in the context of tree planting.
Nevertheless, we are hearing of some landlords agents attempting to threaten the use of such special notices to frighten tenants into surrendering land in return for low or no compensation.
The situation for tenants occupying on farm business tenancies is very different, with security depending on the contractual terms of the agreement."
The TFAs warning comes hot on the heels of a call from the Welsh Conservatives for the Government in Cardiff to ban foreign multinationals from accessing public money to plant trees.
Shadow Rural Affairs Minister Samuel Kurtz urged Ministers to make the move after a series of reports about farmland being bought by foreign companies, who went on to use the Glastir Woodland Creation (GWC) scheme to extol their green credentials.
Farmers' Union of Wales president Glyn Roberts said the union continued to receive reports from members on 'almost a weekly basis' of whole farms or parcels of land being bought up by individuals and businesses from outside of Wales.
"This is for the purpose of tree planting in order to invest in the growing carbon market or offset their own emissions - rather than seeking to reduce their carbon footprint in the first instance," he added.
IN Scotland the iconic Glen Dye Estate in the eastern Grampians has been sold for forestry and peatland restoration.
The deal which covers 6356 hectares is the latest and largest of its type in Scotland and has been driven by the rewards offered for carbon capture.
The joint purchasers are Par Equity, a Scottish-based forestry investment fund manager and global asset managers Aviva Investors.
The partnership, which is making its first investment of this type, plans to capture over 1.4 million tonnes of carbon through woodland creation and peatland management.
The land is presently open moorland used for a mix of sporting and farming enterprises.
The sale price has not been disclosed but, using recently quoted bare land planting values of 14,500 per ha, it could be around 88 million.
