Felling License question

[AlexB]

Forestry Commission England requests felling licences from Forest Services, previously authority.

 

Where they operate a beat system.

One district comprises of X beats. X beats compromises of X woods each coming under its own management plan and for each plan it has a felling licence.

 

I guess your way around this is to have a management plan for each wood, then I would assume they're counted as separate woods. Though if you're going to do that you might just as we'll write one for the whole lot and get a felling licence.

[County 764]

Has local authority not got forest plan in place? This should account for felling. If not then its a fairly straightforward thing to put in place especially if its under 100ha

[ballibeg]

I've had all sorts of problems with felling license for a small wood.

 

I think they think I've got the decimal point in the wrong place! !

 

Dave

[NickinMids]

How does it work if the land is awaiting ultimate development. Surely the replanting requirement would be covered by the final planning approval, clause 106 is it ..? (or something like that)

[woodyguy]

Surely the confusion here is that he is asking about a felling license when it is actually exemption from a felling license that he wants to test. I thought the idea was that a small wood owner could take a reasonable amount of timber from his wood ie 5cum per quarter without needing a license. But a big landowner would find this an irrelevant amount and with his say 200 acres of wood, would always need to apply for a license. So it reduces bureaucracy for small owners but gets correct application for significant works.

[richy_B]

Just to clarify a little more, its urban forestry not rural. They are individual plantings owned by the local authority but within the same town.

 

If it is local authority land then it could be worth checking if the sites are designated public open spaces. If so I believe they are covered by the exemption:

 

'Felling fruit trees, or trees growing in a garden, orchard, churchyard or designated public open space (eg. under the Commons Act 1899).'

 

The local planning team might be worth asking in regard designation.

[treebloke]

How does it work if the land is awaiting ultimate development. Surely the replanting requirement would be covered by the final planning approval, clause 106 is it ..? (or something like that)

 

I think what you are referring to is Article 106.

 

The land is due for development and approx 600 house's are to be built on what was former heavy industrial land and was planted up around 20 years ago. However, planning permission has not been granted yet so there is no permitted development rights at this moment.

[treebloke]

If it is local authority land then it could be worth checking if the sites are designated public open spaces. If so I believe they are covered by the exemption:

 

'Felling fruit trees, or trees growing in a garden, orchard, churchyard or designated public open space (eg. under the Commons Act 1899).'

 

The local planning team might be worth asking in regard designation.

 

I believe a public open space is still covered by felling license requirements, it's common land that is exempt

[daltontrees]

If it is local authority land then it could be worth checking if the sites are designated public open spaces. If so I believe they are covered by the exemption:

 

'Felling fruit trees, or trees growing in a garden, orchard, churchyard or designated public open space (eg. under the Commons Act 1899).'

 

The local planning team might be worth asking in regard designation.

 

In the Forestry Act, “public open space” means land laid out as a public garden or used ... for the purpose of public recreation, or land being a disused burial ground.

 

It looks like the land doesn't neeed to be open in the sense of having wide open spaces but open in the sense of unrestricted access. I would think for the exemption to apply, the land would need to be devoted to public recreation as its sole or main purpose, not just used for say occasional dog walking as a purpose ancillary to its main purpose or with public recreation tolerated. Indicators of purpose might be signage, lack of locked gates, byelaws, planning policies in the Local Plan and so forth.

 

Herein therefore may lie the answer to the OP question. If the land is devoted to public recreation, no felling license is required.

 

I hope this helps.

 

There is one caveat. You quote -

'Felling fruit trees, or trees growing in a garden, orchard, churchyard or designated public open space (eg. under the Commons Act 1899).'.

However, the Act doesn't say that. It says -

'the felling of fruit trees or trees standing or growing on land comprised in an orchard, garden, churchyard or public open space'.

 

Either yoiu have misquoted or paraphrased, or my legislation reference is out of date. Please correct me if I am wrong.

[daltontrees]

I believe a public open space is still covered by felling license requirements, it's common land that is exempt

 

Sorry, I disagree for the reasons I have just posted. Common land is just one example of where the land might be public open space.