ESS

Boyces in Nelson Lancs may be worth a try for the twang.

A matador would lift that out of there if there was enough access.

That's called life, you made the choice to move there. Heres the reality of it, there is plenty of provision within planning for rural workers. There may be no provision in planning for harvesting contractors who cannot afford the house they would like because they have chosen to move there. If you weren't harvesting the timber a contractor could possibly come from 2-300 miles away and do the work, equally as well, and planners would not have to consider changing the rules for them.

They have plenty of choices. So do you.

It doesn't have to be a case of just managing, I know contractors regularly working away from home, successful at what they and happy.

CAP was a good thing at the outset, but as I said in a previous post UK farmers became too good at what they were asked ton do, hence the goalpost moving.

Maybe, maybe not, but you are the one as a harvesting contractor should have the rules changed to suit your needs, yet other harvesting contractors can manage.

I agree it is bullshit, and is actually the worst thing that has ever happened to forest industry in my time in it.

Technically a proportion of the grant should be repaid, but just like most of the grants are regionalised and people abuse that by having the right postcode then working out of the area none of these things are policed after the initial inspection.

They still have to apply, I know people that have been knocked back. If you owned a farm, bought withyour own sweat and graft, possibly over 2 or 3 generations, you had a herd of 300 cows and a need for a farmhouse for staff, or a family member to help run that herd, bearing in mind it was your own farm , why shouldn't you have the right to build a house on it ? That's what AOC was/is for. Tied housing attached to an agricultural holding, to supply labour for us to be able to eat. You can apply rural worker/forester / gamekeeper to that if you want, however , it is not them that are abusing something or exploiting it, its you that's trying to do that for what you would like in life. As long as you have been in this industry I have been in it 35 years longer , also know a lot of contractors,..i ran almost 10 machines myself at one point, I managed ,and so do many others. I know contractors with machines that never see a yard from the day they are bought to the day they are part exchanged back to the dealer.

Some parts of it may be lucrative, however, milk quotas, sugar beet quotas, dictated crop rotation, produce prices dictated by supermarkets are not, but yet we still need them to grow/produce these things for us. If things were so lucrative why are so many dairy farms going bust, hill farmers sons having to get off the land , farms up for sale ? There are other industries that have had substantial financial aid, did Nissan not get help? British steel, NCB, not to mention the banks.

Most farmers would agree its not fit for purpose, but whats been happening in this discussion is they have been defined as lazy , scrounging privileged leeches, by people that don't know the facts and look at the bigger picture.

4 years for grant .A contractor that wasn't grant aided would still be offering the same in terms of employment, tax etc. The environmental payment part of subsidy farmers receive was imposed on them, if you were in a similar situation and consequently lost some of your income would you not consider wanting some form of compensation? Farmers do not write the rules, in the case of them owning the land they are being told what todo with their own land,..same with stewardship work,there has to be something to show for the money. Livestock farmers have been hammered over the past 20 years and full traceability is required to put safe food on the tables, meat inspectors, slaughter house vets , tagging,records, the list goes on, they are at the mercy of weather, ..if there is such a word as profit it can get wiped out in one snow storm, hailstorm, dry or wet spell.We would have no security of food supply whatsoever. They literally have no idea unless they sell on forward markets, which isn't applicable to all sectors, what they are going to receive until the fall of the hammer. They would not have access to borrowing to provide the food we all eat without subsidy because the banks would have no security on their lending.

...and feed merchants, vets, fuel suppliers, fencing,..

...but someone else would do the harvesting work if you didn't. I know of one contractor that received slightly under £2m last year in machinery grants, some of it was regionalised and some of the machines are working out of area now undercutting local boys. The grants in forestry are not a level playing field,..they are not there for everyone. You keep say it would offer better value for money than farming , how do you know this , perhaps farm subsidies go towards providing jobs? What would it cost to keep those same people on benefits?

Or a chicken farm.

What special priveleges do you think my parents had then? If you look at the history of mass planting in the UK over the past 40 years I think it would be different to what you are trying to portray. There has been planting, fencing, drainage, roadbuilding , establishment grants, there has also been tax breaks. Tens upon millions were invested in grant aid/tax relief to plant thousands of acres of peat ground to grow Sitka, tens of millions have been spent since deforesting and restoring them,the produce sold tax free,are they not priveleges?

Since when has 10 acres of poplar been a smallholding? Why do you feel everything has to be dictated by profit ? a lot of the smaller farms are bought by people buying a lifestyle, is that wrong? My parents were farmers, worked very hard all their lives, my Grandfather on my Fathers side died before they any of his children left school, consequently they had to let the family farm go, they had nothing. I saw the hours Dad worked as a single handed manager on a hill farm , it wasn't easy. Eventually through hard work they bought their own land , and semi retired to a small farm they bought outright from graft. He wasn't looking for profit, just spending time on land he had bought with a small amount of stock. There are others that do the same, do we begrudge people that? I don't.

I have spent a couple of days this week felling oversize diseased trees. Tbh any decay at the butt end could have been expected of trees of that size on that particular type of ground. I have felled a few parcels now , and certainly from a felling point have seen little difference in how the trees respond to non diseased trees. I did take photos ,but sadly they are of poor quality and would be of little value to the discussion.

Tbh I lost interest when "dolescum" and "landscum" were getting bandied around .

Ah ok, ..I put a steel frame up way back in the 80s at home and remember at 60x20 it was within the permitted footage. We were in national park so had to use specific roofing material to help blend in .

It used to be up to a certain square footage without full planning, not sure if that's changed. However I doubt many farmers put buildings up just because they can, more because theres a need, like sheep housing, grain storage etc.

On one site we had 2 weeks cover,one lane closed alternating lights, 2 reds whilst felling. Without looking into it I suspect it is a FISA recommendation as I looked at a private estate job recently and it was needed for a few roadside trees. Certainly as far as forestry goes, if its a recommendation the shit would hit the fan in the event of something going wrong.

I have worked on several FC sites in recent months adjacent to roads. They insist on TM for any felling work,..mechanical or manual up to 2 tree lengths from road. Two reds whilst felling takes place.

I agree. Supermarket costings are based on profit per sq/ft, hence why they feature strongly in dictating the price of produce. Morrisons have their own slaughter houses and some of the other supermarkets are major shareholders in meat processors, they dictate the market at livestock auctions, as well as milk prices etc etc.