Broaching Forestry work in Kent

[v1Tom1v]

Hi All,

 

Its my first time posting on here so I hope I have done so in the right Topic. I am trying to change careers and broach the Forestry/woodland management sector as I would like my professional life to contribute to the management and conservation of the ancient woodland in my local area. I have recently undergone and passed qualifications in chainsaw maintenance and crosscutting as well as felling trees up to 380mm as well as sourcing all my own Equipment and PPE in an attempt to make myself more desirable when applying for work. This being the case I am finding it very hard to actually find any vacancies/Opportunities for any forestry work in my area despite there being plenty of working woodland. I am hoping that there might be some folk on here might be able to provide some advice as to how best to broach the sector or possibly even a local contact (Canterbury, Kent area) who I could speak to about work in my local area. Any advice or help would be very gratefully received.

 

Tom

[the village idiot]

Hi Tom,

 

What is your preferred option, working in various woodlands as a contractor/freelance operative or taking on one or two woodlands/an estate and making a long term project of them?

 

Have you got any start up capital beyond what you have already spent?

 

What were you doing before?

[v1Tom1v]

Hi there,

 

My preference is more the Estate/ woodlands route.

 

I am limited by a lack of startup capital of which I have very little after the expense of the qualifications and equipment. To this end setting up as a contractor seems a risky choice as I would not be able to afford any prolonged stint not working. this being the case I have been focusing on trying to find work for someone established in order to gain experience and contacts in order to work towards self employment. 

 

I am currently working as a caretaker as a necessity after striking out finding opportunities for forestry work in my area.

[webby1289]

I'm new to it all myself but have been able to find lots of work (enough to mostly keep myself buys 5 days/week) by going the self employed route. It might be anecdotal but I have noticed that a fair few forestry contractors are one man band sort of operations where they can't really afford to take on full time employees but are happy to use labour only subcontractors. I am by no means an expert, but I've found the majority of my work by just googling forestry/woodland management companies as far as you're willing to travel and giving them a bell. The only thing you'll really have to buy on top of the stuff you already have is a public liability insurance policy and register for self assessment tax online. 

 

As for finding the people to phone, yell.com is a good place to find the companies/people and the Forestry Contracting Association has a map and phone directory of all of its members, and it lets you filter by what sort of work they do which is pretty handy.

 

http://www.forestrycontracting.co.uk/membership-directory/

Edited January 3, 2019 by webby1289

[v1Tom1v]

Hi there Webby,

Thanks for the input, sorry its taken me a while to respond! I have just recently just had a stroke of luck in finding an opportunity for some consistent work as an independent contractor locally. This seems to be my best bet I feel and the only decent opportunity I have come across in a year of looking!

I am looking into the public liability insurance as we speak as well as the tax return side of things. Do you have any further pearls of wisdom you discovered when getting into the self employed forestry work scene?

Thanks again for taking the time to respond.

Cheers,

Tom

[webby1289]

9 hours ago, v1Tom1v said:

Hi there Webby,

Thanks for the input, sorry its taken me a while to respond! I have just recently just had a stroke of luck in finding an opportunity for some consistent work as an independent contractor locally. This seems to be my best bet I feel and the only decent opportunity I have come across in a year of looking!

I am looking into the public liability insurance as we speak as well as the tax return side of things. Do you have any further pearls of wisdom you discovered when getting into the self employed forestry work scene?

Thanks again for taking the time to respond.

Cheers,

Tom

Don't have much to add really but glad you found some work. One thing you might want to know when looking at public liability is that apparently the Forestry Commission ask for at least £5 million cover for all contractors working on their sites. Worth knowing if you're looking at insurance providers/quotes.

 

Best of luck