It seems a lot of people are under the impression that the sell off of publicly owned forests has been cancelled and the fight has been won.
Unfortunately, this is not the case.
Yesterday, I joined a group of people at a protest rally at Hamsterley Forest, in Teesdale, County. (North East England)
I got the chance to stand on ground a little higher than the rest and I took a good look at members of the crowd. They were not your “usual suspects” that would associate with a protest. There were grandparents with children, family groups, people on bikes, foot and horses. There were posh people, academics, working people, retired people, children in pushchairs, in baby carriers and at least one child still in its mother’s womb.
One thing that bonded the crowd together was the sense of value we placed on the Forest itself. Whether people were there for environmental or recreational reasons, none of us want a forest run as a public amenity to be sold into private ownership to be run for profit.
The price tag that was placed on Hamsterley was £2,000,000.00
That’s a lot of money to you or me, but how big a difference or me would that make in terms of the government’s budget and plugging a gap in the public finances. I decided to look into it and try and get a sense of context, to see what giving up ownership of that forest FOREVER would actually achieve for the government. Did they have a point? Ok, spending that amount would keep our troops in Afghanistan for 24 hours, one day. In the words of the TV game show, deal or no deal? No deal as far as I was concerned. That amount of money would allow us to be a member of the European Union for……. Wait for it…… this is the really shocking thing…… 1Hour. That’s right, giving up the forest forever, allows to be a member of the EU for around 60 minutes. For me, those figures alone tell me the amount of money raised from a sale of the forest would be so insignificant compared to the loss of amenity, it simply isn’t worth it.
We were also told be an official of PCS, that the Forestry Commission were planning to massively scale back their educational work within the forest, as well as closing the local Hamsterley office and running things from Pickering in Yorkshire. So much for the Government’s approach to localism?
In short, the forest, run as public amenity, operates two Sites of Special Scientific Interest, provides excellent, safe, facilities for walking, running, mountain biking as well as horse riding. The educational events can inspire children who may never have been outside an urban area and the work carried out by the staff working at the forest is self-evident by the neat and orderly facilities, as well as the well maintained tracks and paths.
The government do need to repair the public finances, but when it comes to raising funds, they need to look elsewhere.
Thanks to Teesdale Mercury for their Hands Off Hamsterley campaign. The fight goes on.
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