Standard / estimated costs for forestry road construction?

[RichardT]

Anyone know if there's an FC or other source for these, preferably along with relevant specs? I need to decide whether this will be cheaper than long forwarder runs to our existing tracks, some across clearfell with no brash readily available. We've a quarry on site here with unlimited decent shale hardcore, so it's build costs that I'm most concerned with.

 

Thanks for any help.

[Arborist Sites]

Hi Richard,

 

we do engineering surveys for forest roads/tracks along with civil cad and our hardware we use this bit of software, is worth a look for you.

 

Forest Engineering Software

 

Also a FC spec

 

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/specforestroads.pdf/$FILE/specforestroads.pdf

 

plus a few others.....

 

http://www.oregon.gov/ODF/STATE_FORESTS/docs/management/roads_manual/RMSec4-Const.pdf

 

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/informationforthemerchant-haulier.pdf/$FILE/informationforthemerchant-haulier.pdf

 

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/specforestroads.pdf/$FILE/specforestroads.pdf

 

If you can find it the best info will be on wind farm access tracks, a lot of these we have worked on are done to complete a specific job "temp site access on a budjet" as we have seen they are cheaply done but will prob outlast general roads

 

Unfortunately i cannot post details of ones we have worked on for obvious reasons...

 

 

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/CefnCroesWindfarmAccess2.pdf/$FILE/CefnCroesWindfarmAccess2.pdf

 

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/FARRWINDFARMACCESS2.pdf/$FILE/FARRWINDFARMACCESS2.pdf

[RichardT]

Thanks, plenty of useful stuff to look at there.

[Pine Marten]

Once you've gone through the excellent advice above take a look at the FC (Wales) Woodland Improvement Grant (WIG) Calculator page. It give indicative values for forest operations including average roading costs

 

Forestry Commission Wales - BWW - Calculating WIG