U-turn on forest sell-off is welcomed

They are right not to go ahead with this, says Beenham community wood manager over Government decision to ditch policy

A MAN responsible for running a community wood in Beenham has welcomed the Government's U-turn decision over its plans to sell a large chunk of publicly owned forests - plans which are to be officially ditched today (Thursday).

During parliamentary questions on Wednesday, Prime Minister David Cameron said he was "not happy" with the policy, which could have resulted in the selling of 40,000 hectares of publicly owned forests currently managed by the Forestry Commission, and yesterday (Thursday) the Environment Secretary, Caroline Spelman, told Parliament that the Government had "got this one wrong".

She said that the consultation has been halted and that all forestry clauses in the Public Bodies Bill, in which the plans were outlined, would be removed.

The Government attracted huge opposition from large swathes of middle England when it announced the plans, including objection from the Archbishop of Canterbury and several celebrities.

Newbury MP Richard Benyon, who is the parliamentary under-secretary of state at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, was unavailable for comment yesterday (Thursday) but had previously told Newbury Today's sister newspaper, the Newbury Weekly News, that the plans would not amount to a sell-off.

He said earlier this month: “A lot of hot air has been whipped up over this. It has never been our intention to do any of the things that have been claimed."

He also pointed to a woodland in Beenham, Grey Field Wood, which had, some years earlier, been bought up by the local community and is now being managed by themselves, as an example of how he saw many of the sales playing out.

He said: "What we wanted to do is to provide the same opportunity for other communities."

However, the man responsible for running Grey Field Wood on behalf of the community, Chris Penley (pictured), was heavily opposed to the Government's plans and called the two situations incomparable.

Yesterday, Mr Penley said of the Government's massive U-turn decision: “I think they are right not to go ahead with this. There was a vast amount of public opinion against them, even more than for the poll tax in the 80s. I don't think they thought this through at all.”

The Woodland Trust also welcomed the Government's intentions to abandon the plans for the disposal of public forests, although added that the campaign to protect and restore England's ancient forests must go on.

Chief executive of the Trust, Sue Holden, said: “We welcome the opportunity for a more considered approach to the future of our much loved woodlands but our campaign continues. Whilst we welcome the removal of threats to public access, there is still an acute need for better protection of Ancient Woodland, our equivalent of the rainforests, and restoration of ancient woods planted with conifers. Even if there are no sales of publicly owned forests, the worst of all worlds would be for there to be no change to the loopholes that have allowed 850 ancient woods to be threatened by built development over the past decade. Ministers have made strong commitments over the past few weeks to increase protection for ancient woods, and we will be holding them to these commitments.”