Private passions over sale of public woodlands

But the stunned silence was soon replaced by a sense of outrage, and by Wednesday he had designed a poster declaring in red letters: “Our Forest Is Not For Sale”.

Gibbs is chairman of the Friends of Dalby Forest, an 8,500-acre super-woodland near Pickering in North Yorkshire.

Once a royal hunting forest, in the 1920s Dalby was developed as one of the country’s largest conifer plantations and in recent decades it has become a popular outdoor pursuits centre, attracting over 400,000 visitors a year.

A 64-page consultation document published by the Department for Food and Rural Affars proposes the sale or leasing of 1,500 forests – one fifth of all woodland in England – at present owned by the Government’s Forestry Commission.

After a three-month consultation period, the Government will put revised proposals before Parliament in the Public Bodies Bill.

But the Government has been taken aback by the weight of public opposition to their proposals. One aristocratic critic describes it as the political equivalent for this government of Margaret Thatcher’s poll tax.

Many suspect it’s simply a means of raising easy money rather than, as has been stated by Defra, a way of improving the management of England’s forests.

Already, the Liberal Democrats’ president, Tim Farron, has publicly ripped up a copy of the proposals.

In Yorkshire, the Commission owns more than 60,000 acres of woodland. The largest are the neighbouring Dalby and Cropton forests in the North York Moors National Park and 1,200-acre Wharncliffe Wood near Sheffield.

Other locations include Wheldrake, near York, Stainburn, near Otley, Harwood and Wykeham, near Scarborough, Sneaton near Whitby and Gilling near Helmsley.

The Commission also has numerous small plantations, many of them developed as community woods on derelict colliery land in South Yorkshire.

Dalby, though, is the most famous forest in Yorkshire. It is a major international centre for mountain biking, with about 35 miles of dedicated trails, and it will host this year’s World Cup Cross Country Mountain Bike Championships.

But most visitors come for walking, for the sense of remoteness, to study the woodland’s wildlife – there are five Sites of Special Scientific Interest hosting a number of rare birds, mammals, plants and insects – or to see the numerous ancient monuments.

Peter Gibbs and the Friends of Dalby Forest are worried that much of the good work that’s been done there in recent years might quickly be sacrificed if profit becomes the major driving force of private owners.

“It’s a huge forest of nearly 9,000 acres,” he says. “If a company invests many millions of pounds in buying Dalby, then the bottom line will also be making a return for its shareholders.

“Who knows what they might introduce? Those holiday parks for families, for example, would be our nightmare scenario. Such a development would be unsuitable here. Yet as things stand there’s nothing to stop that happening.”

The Friends organisation was formed in 2003 to promote the enjoyment of Dalby and to communicate the hopes and fears of local communities to the Forestry Commission. While maintaining their independence, Gibbs says, the Friends have had an excellent working relationship with the Commission.

The Friends arrange a programme of events, do much of the footpath maintenance work and have recently put forward a plan for a renewable energy scheme, driven by the water from Staindale Lake, to generate electricity for buildings inside the forest.

The Defra consultation document suggests there will be guarantees of continued public access for woodland that is designated as “heritage forest”, and these could be handed over to charities to run. But despite Dalby’s popularity and its important wildlife sites, its official designation remains “mixed-use woodland”. As such, it has no special protection.

Gibbs argues that any forest with a large and active Friends group like the one he chairs – there are over 30 of them in England – should be classified as a heritage forest and thus receive special treatment under the government proposals.

At Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Barry Sheerman, the Labour MP for Huddersfield, suggested that the sell-off was the modern-day equivalent of “common land being stolen from English common people” two centuries ago.

David Cameron said he believed organisations like the Woodland Trust and National Trust could do a better job in running the forests.

So far, the National Trust has declared that it might be interested in taking over some, in particular the New Forest in Hampshire. But Britain’s largest owner of private woodland, the Woodland Trust, made a scathing attack on the Government’s proposals.

It fears that some woods offered for sale might “slip through the net” of protection while many others will end up being unmaintained.

By the end of the week one online petition against the proposals was heading for over half a million signatures.

The idea that the Friends of Dalby Forest might themselves buy or take over the running of the woodland was derided by Gibbs.

“My answer is this – it’s already owned by the public. So why on earth should we buy it? Someone said that becoming the owners of Dalby could be a dream come true for some, but it could also be a nightmare. Running something this big would be a huge operation.

“It’s not something a charity like ourselves could easily take on, certainly not without a lot of guarantees from government as to the future funding.

“Our birthright to walk in the woods that we own, as a nation, should not be put up for sale to the highest bidder.”

Mike Potter, vice chairman of Pickering and District Civic Society writes: Dalby Forest for sale. Pickering flood scheme high and dry. Does this sound a little sensational? If the Government has its way, both could be a reality.

How sensible is it to start disposing of these public assets before essential checks and balances come into force? Good intentions and vague promises don’t necessarily deliver.

Excellent work by the Forestry Commission in the last 15-20 years has opened up the forestry for leisure pursuits. Tourism is vital to North Yorkshire but what will the future hold for the wonderful cycling and walking trails of Dalby Forest and what will the price of entry be?

Without the Forestry Commision’s guaranteed production levels, timber prices could spiral as private owners restrict supply. What controls would there be for private owners to consider the landscape, biodiversity or even to plant naturally occurring tree species? How robust would enforcement of any conditions be?

How long before subsidies paid back to landowners outweigh the short-term gain? What will be the future for the debris dams, tree planting and land management specifically aimed at slowing the flow of floodwaters above Pickering, which has taken several years of hard campaigning to bring to fruition?

Will private owners be maintaining or improving these provisions without hefty financial inducements? It’s been suggested that local authorities or charities could buy the land to protect its future. Where does the cash, manpower and management come from when we’re all suffering massive cutbacks?

The “Big Society” is under big financial stress, none more so than rural communities. You could try responding to the consultation, but a raft of simple “agree or disagree” answers will inevitably leave you frustrated and unable to express your true opinions.

Once our forests have been flogged off, they’re gone for good.

For more on this see Opinion in today’s newspaper.