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Your Forest??? not really!!!
Will we stand by and watch the privatisation of our forests? Simon Jenkins The
Forestry Commission is party to semi-commercial development that could be
devastating for our countryside. It should know better ‘The Mortimer Forest
plan has been with Hereford council for three years, only seeing the light of
day in February.’ ‘The Mortimer Forest plan has been with Hereford council for
three years, only seeing the light of day in February.’ Photograph: Mike
Hayward/photoshropshire.com/Alamy There is something murky down in the forest.
In 2010, the Cameron government was so shocked at the reaction to its planned
privatisation of the Forestry Commission that it backed off. It said it had
abandoned the whole idea. It lied. It just privatised in secret. Plans have
emerged of the commission’s proposals for Mortimer Forest outside Ludlow, an
exquisite stretch of woodland in the Welsh Marches. A company called Forest
Holidays wants to erect an estate of 70 luxury chalets in the forest. It is, in
truth, a scattered luxury hotel, serviced by car parks, toilets, recreation
areas and “landscaped lookouts”. The company already has 10 such estates and
plans many more, with up to 90 chalets in each. These are not rural communities
or compact villages. Forest Holidays was created in the 1960s by the Forestry
Commission, which still holds a 14% share in the company. Under a bizarre 2012
“framework agreement”, the company is given the right to develop as many as 30
sites across the forestry estate at any one time, with no eventual limit. It
pays the commission a rent per chalet of an average £3,000 a year, and rents
out the chalets for up to £4,000 a week, an eye-popping margin. Some of the
leases are for a phenomenal 125 years. According to the Sunday Times, it
already ranks fourth in Britain among private companies for profits growth.
Forests sell-off plan by government is 'asset-stripping our natural heritage'
Read more This might all seem small beer, another example of the oleaginous
workings of “parastatal” Britain. The country may have less woodland per acre
than anywhere in Europe, but it can surely handle a few private estates of “hot
tubs and fluffy towels”. As the company said recently, it is as yet developing
only an “infinitesimal” share of the commission’s estate. So, what happened
last December? A company called Phoenix Equity acquired 42% of Forest Holidays
for £110m. This valued the company at an extraordinary £262m. The reason was
soon clear when Forest Holidays’ chief executive, Bruce McKendrick, justified
the high price on the grounds that “the [forestry] commission has a million
hectares of forest, so we’ve got plenty to keep us going for many years to
come”. That is equity-speak for “we struck a goldmine”. The Forest Holidays
deal, in effect with the government, is extraordinary. The government has
granted a private company exclusive access to exploit a public land bank. There
will be no competitors, no rival bidders and no limit to its growth. Indeed the
company and the commission make planning applications jointly, as if they were
one and the same. The agreement also promises that, provided the sites are not
in a nature reserve or protected area, they cannot be opposed. Should anyone
object, such as an uppity planner, the Forestry Commission has “a duty to help
bypass regulations”. With 14%, it has more than duty – it has a clear
incentive. This means that a body that exists to maintain Britain’s forests is
party not just to their privatisation but to their complete exploitation – and
for as long as 125 years. It is small wonder this whole saga has been shrouded
in secrecy. The Mortimer Forest plan has been with Hereford council for three
years, only seeing the light of day in February. Doubtless because of the
privatisation row, the 2012 deal stipulated that the commission commit itself
to secrecy. It would ensure “that the media and the public are not aware of new
development site selection”. For a public body explicitly to promise to conceal
evidence of its dereliction of duty is amazing. A spokesman for the Mortimer
campaigners, Colin Richards, is a passionate defender of forest wildness. To
him, the chalet development will destroy the tranquillity of what is, in this
case, not even a particularly large forest. As a result of the development, he
says: “Wildlife habitat on publicly owned land will be destroyed in favour of a
busy private holiday park. The whole project is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
The Forestry Commission denies that it is engaged in privatisation, despite
actually holding shares in the relevant private company. It argues that “the
forests are still publicly owned, and the Forestry Commission retains control
of what can happen on the land through the business framework agreement”. But
the terms of this agreement are biased in the company’s favour, and they
indicate a blatant conflict of interest. It is like London Zoo going into
taxidermy. Q&A: England forests sell-off Read more I love forests. I have no
objection in principle to their privatisation – a tree is a tree – provided it
is subject to objective planning and impartial regulation. There is none of
that here. Chalet parks in public forests offend every dictate of rural
planning. They are space-hungry, traffic-generating and energy-inefficient.
Today, buildings (and jobs) should be concentrated on and around existing
settlements, not left to sprawl wherever the money is good. Worst of all, these
parks derive their private value by diminishing the public value of where they
are located. The future of the British countryside is in the balance.
Traditional town and country planning is in abeyance, following David Cameron’s
dismantling of structure planning. Whitehall now forces through almost any
development application, irrespective of quality or setting. No village or town
is safe from a Persimmon 300-unit volume executive estate. There is no
requirement to respect local character, once elementary planning practice. The
Forestry Commission used to be the despoiler of Britain’s uplands, with its
conifer acres, monocultures and acid rivers. It has lately improved, especially
in its commitment to biodiversity and public recreation. Yet the Forest
Holidays deal puts its entire estate into play. It is selling off a public land
bank already worth £262m, yet hardly a penny (other than 14%) is coming to the
taxpayer. This is pure banana republic. Forest Holidays describes its chalets,
as they scatter through Britain’s woodlands, as “sheer decadence”. That says it
all. • Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
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