Highland Titles Advertising Plots In Glencoe Again Even After ASA Ruling

As some may be aware, although Highland Titles use the Scottish place name Glencoe very extensively in their advertising material, they have no real connection to Glencoe. The nearest land they own to Glencoe is some miles away in Duror, which could not by any reasonable measure we can think of, be described as Glencoe.

It didn't surprise us when an Advertising Standards Agency complaint claiming that Highland Titles had been advertising their land as being "in Glencoe" was upheld. According to the complaint this type of advert appeared on search results on two search engines, Dogpile and Yahoo.

In fact it was much more extensive than that. similar adverts were also observed on Google "Buy a Piece of Glencoe" and on Bing "Buy A Plot in Glencoe", and on duckduckgo "Buy a Piece of Glencoe", and on AOL "Buy a Piece of Glencoe", and on Webcrawler "Buy a Piece of Glencoe", and on Ask Jeeves "Buy a Piece of Glencoe", and on Contenko "Buy a Piece of Glencoe".

It's pretty clear that at one time, Highland Titles adverts via multiple agencies incorrectly indicated that consumers could buy a plot from them "in Glencoe" or "of Glencoe" when that was not, and still is not true.

It is disappointing to discover that even after the ASA ruling, they are still doing the same thing. Below is an advert seen via a Google search on 27 November 2017 reading, "Official Highland Titles® - Buy Your Plot In Glencoe Today‎"


Also, on Amazon, on a Highland Titles advert seen on 14th November 2017, members of the public can apparently buy "....10 Square Foot Plot of Land in Lochaber Plus 1 Square Foot in Glencoe". The square foot plot is not in Glencoe.

Highland Titles seller Kilts Wi Hae based in Aberdeenshire advertises Highland Titles plots on Amazon, the advert headline starts "Glencoe Scottish Land Plot", The plots are not in Glencoe.

No Highland Titles land plots to which customers can obtain some sort of contract of personal rights (souvenir plots in Scotland cannot be owned), are in Glencoe. Yet even after an ASA complaint on the matter has been upheld, some Highland Titles advertising and that of at least one third party seller still indicates they are.

The local council address record for Highland Titles in Duror from onesotlandgazetteer is as below. The word "Glencoe" is not in it at all anywhere.

HIGHLAND TITLES NATURE RESERVE, DUROR

HIGHLAND TITLES NATURE RESERVE,
DUROR,
APPIN,
PA38 4BW.

Custodian: Highland
UPRN: 130171119

We can't think this would be the action of any morally responsible organisation. For a company which is apparently owned by an Alderney registered charity and run by trustees of that charity, we think it pretty disgraceful behaviour.

Highland Titles - Scottish Woodland Alliance - 10 Year Tree Planting Pledge Farce

We intended to publish this for #HighlandTitlesDay on 10th Feb 2017, we didn't quite make it, but think a few days late isn't going to change the facts or relevance.

Back in 2007 on their website at lairdswood.org.uk (now defunct), the Scottish Woodland Alliance made the following pledge.

"A major funding pledge from Lochaber Highland Estates (CI) Ltd will enable up to 1,000 hectares of new woodland to be created in Scotland over the next ten years.."

A December 2012 archived copy of the page can be seen HERE.

October 2007 version HERE, so we can date the pledge to this date or before.

So who are The Scottish Woodland Alliance? At last update on 22/06/2016 they were. Peter Bevis, his wife Helen McGregor, their daughter Laura Bevis, and son in law Douglas Wilson. The usual Highland Titles suspects,  this is a distinctly family affair.

This can be verified HERE

And we can date control of SWA in 2007 to Peter Bevis, via a Scotsman article HERE

"He (Peter Bevis) shrugs off any suggestion that he avoids British tax - "the business is registered in the Channel Islands because that's where the family's from" - and defends his organisation, the Scottish Woodland Alliance, whose website is linked to Lochaber Highland Estates and encourages its readers to invest in trees at Laird's Wood. He intends to register the alliance as a charity, he explains, to help fund even more tree-planting in Scotland."

This is a very considerable tree planting undertaking (1000 hectares is just short of 2500 acres). Given the same planting density as their own (we believe unfinished) Jubilee Wood project of 500 trees per acre, (lets say around 1,000 trees/hectare), that comes to around 1,000,000 trees. Creating "1000 hectares of new woodland" would have meant planting one million trees in the ten years since 2007.

Eight years on (in 2015), Highland Titles were giving figures of 8,000 trees planted. For example on a Facebook post dated 17th Sept 2015, it was claimed, "Highland Titles have planted around 8000 trees at the Reserve in Duror". That's around than a rather miserly 1000 trees per year. At that rate it's going to take them somewhere around 30 years just to plant the previously mentioned Jubilee Wood.

We think it unlikely that in the final 2 years they planted the outstanding 992,000.

Note the word ‘pledge’. This isn’t a dream or an aspiration. Customers are likely to understand that from the funds they contributed to the novel conservation enterprise that is Highland Titles (then known as Lochaber Highland Estates), money would be be set aside to plant up to 1,000,000 trees over the following ten years.

A common definition of pledge is a solemn promise.

We think this a quite startling example of the Highland Titles mob not coming close to fulfilling one of their promises. But then, this is a Highland Titles pledge.