A Rhino in the valley?

It was revealed at the recent Council meeting to confirm the Tree Preservation Order by John Mair, the land agent for Grove Wood, that the ownership of the wood had been transferred to Rhino Group Ltd. We've now received the publicly available documents on this company from Companies House.

Its most recent return shows that it is a company that works in 'general construction and civil engineering' as well as 'forestry and logging'. The company was originally establised in 2003 as the 'Industrial Cutting Group Ltd'.

The company is registered in Stoke Bishop and it has a single Director, Lord Houshang Jafari Najafabadi, who appears to be the only shareholder. The Company Secretary is Yaser Jafari Najafabadi. Both reside in the location where the company is registered, along with many companies.

We can find no trace of any website or other publicly available information about Rhino Group Ltd. However, we are alarmed that it no longer seems to be the intention of Mr Jafari to use Grove Wood as 'private woods and gardens' as he has claimed in correspondence with the Council. He must now clearly see his interest in Grove Wood as some sort of commercial venture. Why else would he transfer it from his own personal ownership to that of one of his companies that has interests in construction, engineering, forestry and logging?

Thanks to Jake for undertaking this research. All the information provided here is publicly available from Companies House and no privacy codes have been broken by publishing this information. To be courteous, we have not published the precise location of where Rhino Group Ltd is registered.