Varying a woodland management plan

[Paul73]

I would like to vary my woodland management plan for a single compartment. I have a felling license to clear fell this compartment and allow natural regen. On reflection would prefer to clear fell and re-stock with Cricket bat Willow. Can anyone advise the simplest way to get this change approved?

 

The compartment is low lying land, designated as broadleaved but not ancient on the magic map. The land frequently floods which has meant that the plantation of Thuja and Norway spruce in this compartment has at least 50% failed. 

 

Is this just a case of sending in an application for a new felling license for this compartment and with re-stocking at 100 stems per hectare (which is what the .gov site suggests for cricket bat willow)? or do I need to get the management plan varied too?

 

Another side issue is that I would rather like to move a track to an existing central ride through another compartment that is to be clear felled. I have no metalled track but I got it approved in my management plan to surface the existing unmade track and I got the council to approve it for planning permission as it joined to a classified road. I have now got more than 25 metres from the classified road with surfaced track as per the planning permission. I can see that the old track is not as ideally placed as it could be for efficiency and cuts through the RPAs of the nicest trees in the whole wood (which are to be retained). Its a bit of a no brainer to move the track but how many hoops would it involve I wonder to get it rubber stamped? I am tempted to just do it as I am past 25 metes and I need a surfaced track for good management. It sounds like permitted development to me but I would be glad of people's views.

 

Thanks,

 

Paul

[Amarus]

Paul,

 

Your first call should be to your woodland officer. Some variations regarding restock species are allowed in like for like situation i.e. one broadleaved tree species for another. If you have already felled the area then it might get stickier as an enacted licence cannot be changed. 

Depending on what the WO says, you probably only need to change the management plan wording and don't need a new licence.

 

Potentially, CBW and natural regen can be married on the same site as the former is planted in a very wide grid allowing space for the latter.

 

As for the track, to put it bluntly, you only have permission to build what you have included in your application to the council and nothing else. You can either ask for a variation (I have not done it for a woodland application but for my residential PP it was about £25) or submit a new permitted development notification (£180?) for what you want to do now.

 

You have to send a prior notification to the council about the development you believe falls under the forestry exemption and if the council doesn't tell you otherwise within 28 days then you are good to go. It shouldn't be an onerous job but it really depends on the planning officer.

Edited June 15 by Amarus

[Paul73]

Thanks for your reply. I haven't felled anything yet. I would like to get the extraction track sorted first but I am thinking I may only do it if I can put a profitable second crop there to extract as otherwise it is quite possible that the track will cost more than the value of the timber in the partly failed compartment.

 

I have found it very hard to actually get to speak to my woodland officer. Calling the FC seems to get put through to people who sound like they are abroad and they then they leave messages that are not replied to. 

 

To get a grant for my loading area that connects the track to the road, calls got me no advice and no site meeting but by submitting a planning application that I hoped looked sensible, followed by a grant application, months later, I  got to meet on site with a nice young man from the FC. More than a year after that meeting I got my grant approved but it felt like a struggle and simple advice about typical dimensions and specifications for the area would not have gone amiss. A site meeting before submitting the planning application would have been awesome.

 

The young chap I saw was I think still in training. I asked him about the variations mentioned here and how to get them approved and he said "Oh no always stick to the woodland management plan". I thought about it for a year or so and thought "Surely there must be some mechanism where I am allowed to have a better idea and improve the plan?"

 

So after calling an Indian gentleman twice who may have misunderstood me because he hung up on me first, then felt I should email "woodland creation" and a nice antipodean lady who left a message for my woodland officer to call me that was not replied to I am wondering whether to apply straight for another felling license as a way to stimulate a response. I find that submitting an application is often the only way to get some arb consultancy issues addressed by councils and maybe it works with the FC? Generally my experiences with the FC have not been stellar. Nothing negative but it seems a struggle to get anything positive. Maybe they are just overrun with work and I am a small fry in their ocean?

 

The big question is will I lose my existing license for the woodland as a whole or for that compartment if I apply for a second one for that compartment? if not there is nothing to lose.

 

Thanks,

 

Paul

[Amarus]

Let's not even go there regarding the FC's current crop of new officers. All I would say, back in the days there used to be one officer across most of Wiltshire, most of Somerset and South Glos. Nowadays, there are at least 6, one or two positions being always vacant. Level of service is not 6x better...

They are suffering from the paying peanuts and getting monkeys symptom. It is not the poor officers making, I blame the people who put them in there.

Enough of this, actually when you get to know them most are very pleasant to work with as long as you know their limitations.

 

If you have not come across, this might offer you some help with roading: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5b3611b1e5274a0bbef01fb2/ON025-ForestRoadsandTracksv1.0issued110809__1_.pdf

 

You have not been told the right thing about the WMP - it is a working document and you are expected to change it. The only thing that is cumbersome (not impossible) to alter is the licences, the text bit is flexible (within UKFS), you can change it any time and send it over to the WO.

 

I wouldn't worry about your plan not being valid anymore. You don't need a new licence, you want to change one of the restock conditions which can be done via email exchange. 

Th FC can stack licences (multiple, different licences on the same plot of land) just don't like doing it. Mainly because 9 out of 10 of them have not got clue what they should do with it.

 

Track down your woodland officer here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66339adf4d8bb7378fb6c16f/1203_WO_boundaries_index_map_England_V2.39.pdf

You can then work out their email as [email protected]. (N.B. don't use shortened names i.e. Rob is always going to be Robert.)  Appalling, if you ask me.

 

 

[Paul73]

Thanks very much, that is really useful information. I will contact my woodland officer -who turns out to be someone no one has ever mentioned to me before.