Forest Chumps

Back in October, the government announced rather ill concieved plans to sell off vast tracts of forest under it's plans to 'substantially reform' the Forestry Commission.

This is a bloody silly idea because - as was discovered when the Scottish parliament came up with a similar plan - you might raise some capital initially but this all leaks back to the new owners. What is effectively happening is that the new owners have the right to chop down all the trees and profit from the timber whist at the same time having access to public funding in order to plant new ones! In fact we are likely to dish out more money to the new landowners than would ever be raised from the sales.

Just to prove the point, the Forestry Commission does occasionally sell off land. One such sale resulted in proceeds of £60,000. The new owner immediately applied for money under the English Woodlands Grant Scheme and was awarded £55,000 to plant new trees. And, of course, he can apply for further grants in the future...

The Forestry Commission is, in fact, a bargain. Last year it raised £75m from the sale of timber, thus costing the taxpayer a net £15m to provide miriad essential services such as tree sciences (e.g. research into potentially devasting diseases like Dutch Elm and Royal Oak), and regulation and licensing of the private forestry sector.

This idea was not thought through properly in the rush to cut the waste out of quangos, and makes no economic sense. It should be scrapped immediately.