Steve Bullman

Confor has welcomed the latest confirmation that the UK Government is committed to planting 30,000 hectares of new woodland annually by 2025. A £92 million funding pot, part of the £640m Nature for Climate Fund, was announced for 2021-22 by Chancellor Rishi Sunak. The funding announcement said the money would "keep us on track to restore more peatlands and plant 30,000 hectares of trees a year by the end of this Parliament." Stuart Goodall, CEO of Confor, said: "This is good news, in that it reaffirms the commitment to the ambitious 30,000 hectare planting target. "However, we won’t hit the target without planting larger areas of woodland, which will only happen in rural areas, and that doesn’t just need funding, but also a change in culture and slicker delivery. "We need to recognise tree planting as a huge positive - to help meet our climate change obligations and to support a green recovery in our rural areas. "In terms of delivery, Confor wants the current costly, complex and cumbersome procedures for planting to be streamlined, to reduce cost and time and to give people confidence to plant." Mr Goodall added: "We also need the constituent parts of the UK to work together and agree targets." Confor has called for co-ordination of UK-wide targets in its response to the EFRA committee inquiry into tree planting. Currently, there is no specific target for England. Confor's response also calls for a review of UK planting procedures, similar to the Mackinnon review, credited with driving up planting in Scotland. More than 80% of UK trees are currently planted in Scotland. Jim Mackinnon, who led the Scottish review, will speak at the next meeting of the All Party parliamentary Group on Forestry and Tree Planting on December 10th. The online event is called One year on from the general election, is the Government on course to meet its tree planting targets? More details and how to sign up here.

Offering fleet managers more visibility and control over the usage of connected tools, STIHL has announced a new Connected app. With a new streamlined design, fleet managers can easily find the data they need from the STIHL Connected homepage, which provides an overview of the fleet of tools as well as model and ownership information. From the homepage, users can also quickly and easily access information on machine running time and maintenance schedules. To help improve efficiency and minimise downtime, the maintenance page is where fleet managers can easily see which tools are due for servicing. It is also where they can access the maintenance history, making it easier to effectively plan based on the tool availability, as well as minimise downtime by ordering spare parts ahead of time. One of the new features available to users is the “nearby” function, which shows users the tools that are in their immediate vicinity, as well as allowing them to view the last known locations of the devices on a map. STIHL Connected comprises four central system components; STIHL Smart Connector, which is attached to the tool, STIHL app which connects to the STIHL cloud and STIHL connected portal. When used in conjunction, STIHL Connected enables professional users to easily analyse key machinery performance data that can be used to not only improve daily work processes, but also help achieve optimal task scheduling for an even more efficient team. STIHL Smart Connector is easy to install and transmits the working time data via Bluetooth to a smartphone or tablet and then the cloud, giving users universal transparency about where power tools are being used and their current status. The smart technology has been introduced by STIHL so professional users can ensure that their power tools are reliably ready for operation, leading to time and cost savings. The new STIHL Connected app is currently available to download free for Android and iOS on the app store. For more information on STIHL Connected or STIHL’s extensive range of power tools, please visit www.stihl.co.uk.