1. David Vickers
Drivelink Training
Farnham, Surrey
28 March 2015
Are Small Woodlands Really Uneconomic?
Introduction
I guess the real question is “what is another way to bring small unmanaged, or under-
managed, woodlands back into the economic cycle?” There is a real view that small
woodlands are not particularly viable (in a financial sense) to manage, and this may be due
to a number of reasons:
Available timber markets.
Access to woodland sites.
Extraction methods based on site topology.
Cost of cutting timber and extraction.
Transportation costs for relatively small amounts of timber.
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2. In this paper, the focus will be mainly on Surrey, not least because it is “England’s most
wooded county” , with woodland cover at around 22% in the county . In fact, that1 2
woodland cover has seen a steady growth since 1890 as the following graph from the
National Inventory of Woodland and Trees - Surrey (p.47) shows:
And yet, oddly enough, despite this increase in woodland cover…
“The last 100 years have witnessed a decline in the economic value of managed
woodland, leading to neglect, scrub invasion and successional change to high
forest. This has been accompanied by fragmentation into smaller compartments
2008. Hargreaves, R. Surrey Woodland Study 2008. Surrey County Council.1
2002. National Inventory of Woodland and Trees - Surrey. Forestry Commission.2
2
“Proin metus
urna porta non,
tincidunt ornare.
Class aptent
taciti sociosqu
ad per inceptos
hamenaeos.”
-Leo Praesen

3. by urbanisation, road building and agricultural intensification. However, there is
now a growing pressure from local people to use remaining woodland for
recreation. Tree felling is unpopular with many people and woodland
management, no longer understood by many members of the public, is often
opposed.”
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It would appear that there is something of a dichotomy - increased woodland cover,
yet less economic return leading to less management, which then leads to a
reduced understanding of the need to manage the woodland; and all the while a
greater shift in the culture of what a woodland is for.
We seem to have lost the link that a woodland provided a crop, and that crop was
timber; it’s little different from an arable farmer planting their seeds, watching it
grow, tending to it, then harvesting it. Forestry and woodland management is the
same process, only over a much longer time-scale.
Perhaps because of the rise in other materials being used to create items (metal
gates instead of Hazel hurdles, plastic brooms instead of Birch besoms, etc.), that
connection between a woodland being at the centre of a community and the
management required to harvest timber for everyday products has been lost.
Instead, we have a shift towards woodland being used for recreational uses, rather
than economic uses; one of the shifts in mindset for the Forestry Commission has
been to find ways to continue harvesting timber whilst making the public forests
much more available for leisure pursuits.
The Forestry Commission however, owns just a small part of the available woodland
in Surrey, although it manages more than this
pie chart suggests. However, the pie chart4
does show that private ownership of the
woodland is massive, and that can lead to
issues with finding the owners and with
woodlands becoming ‘faceless’.
The rise of the conservation movement has,
perhaps, led to the mistaken belief by the wider
public that felling trees is somehow a ‘destruction of the environment’; which links
Surrey Woodland Habitat Action Plan. Available at http://www.surreytreewardens.org.uk/index.php/resources/3
doc_view/94-the-surrey-woodland-hap
Taken from the 2002 National Inventory of Woodland and Trees - Surrey report, available at http://4
www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/surrey.pdf/$FILE/surrey.pdf
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4. back to the reduction of knowledge of how and why forestry and woodland
management must take place to ensure that the habitat is maintained.
Historically though, timber was a crop, and it had to be financially viable to harvest
it. When the Forestry Commission was formed in 1919 following the Forestry Act, it
was “charged with promoting forestry, developing afforestation, the production of
timber, and making grants to private landowners… [and the]… bedrock of forestry
policy in the 1920s was the need to rebuild and maintain a strategic timber
reserve”. The planting of trees was imperative and the rise of the coniferous5
plantation to provide timber quickly and cheaply took hold; with increased timber
stocks, and the opening up of import / export markets again, came market volatility
in pricing as shown in the chart below covering 1985 - 2014 .
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As can be seen, there has been a decline in timber prices from around 1987,
although the trend would appear to show that prices are on the increase once more
- but that decline may have led several owners to conclude that it wasn’t viable to
actively manage their woodlands.
The history of the Forestry Commission, available at http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/CMON-4UUM6R5
Timber price indices, Forestry Commission, available at http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/infd-7m2djr6
4
0.00#
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Real%term%prices%(2011,%£).%
6%months%to...%
Average%<mber%prices%for%so?wood%sawlogs:%1985%F%2014%
Series1#

5. The problem with unmanaged, or under-
managed, woodlands is that the timber
quality reduces, making it less valuable.
It’s a vicious circle and we may be
seeing the result of that approach right
now.
The rise of recreation in the woodlands
has led to increased access requirements, which has led in turn to improved
management of the woodlands, although for quite a different purpose than was
originally perceived. The rise in conservation, ecology, and habitat management has
also given rise to an increased need to manage our tree stock.
So what of the future?
There is another force at work on the management of local timber, especially for
local, small woodland owners - biomass.
The Forestry Commissions Woodfuel Implementation Plan had as two of it’s7
objectives:
increase wood supply by bringing more privately owned woodlands into active
management
help rural based businesses increase their capacity to develop a robust woodfuel
industry
Using small woodlands to supply a wood heat market is a positive move for bringing those
woodlands back into management - but there is still the issue of timber prices for woodfuel,
and whether there it is financially viable to harvest and extract a relatively small amount of
timber on a per-woodland basis.
To counteract this problem, there is an increase in the use of ‘hubs’ to act as a local focal
point for timber collection, as provided by companies such as LC Energy who have
experience in the whole supply chain management of woodfuel.
However, we still need to get the timber felled and processed in the woodland. In larger
woodlands this can be accomplished easily and cost-effectively through the use of forestry
contractors using large machinery such as harvesters and forwarders to make the timber
available at roadside, or in loading bays to allow collection; this may not be an option for
Forestry Commission Woodfuel Implementation Plan 2011-2014. Available at http://www.forestry.gov.uk/7
england-woodfuel
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6. the small woodland owner where accessibility may be an issue, and who may not have
enough timber to be felled to make it economically
viable to bring in a forestry contractor.
What is needed is a way to bring these smaller
woodlands back into management, but at a low
[harvesting] cost for the woodland owner; a way
that will allow them to generate income from the
timber sales, but for little outlay in getting the trees
down.
That’s where the use of forestry and training
organisations can help - they need timber to cut for
courses, but do not necessarily want to be involved
in purchasing the standing timber for onward sale.
This has the advantage that the woodland owner
can have their woodland managed according to the
management plan, with timber cut to the required
specification and stacked… leaving the owner to
sell their timber into the woodfuel market (for example) and making use of local hubs.
It’s an ideal way of bringing timber back into the market, promoting local economies,
providing training to upskill local workers, and ensuring that the regeneration of our
woodlands provides a future marketable product.
If you wish to discuss any of the issues raised in this paper, please contact David Vickers of
Drivelink Training via email david@drivelinktraining.co.uk or phone 0790 067 7715.
About the author
David Vickers founded Drivelink Training to provide high quality, practical forestry and
arboricultural training and assessment; previously David managed and delivered the
forestry and arboriculture short courses at Sparsholt College, Hampshire from 2005 to
2013.
David is a qualified teacher, holding QTLS and an Honours Degree in Education, is a
qualified City & Guilds NPTC trainer and assessor, and regularly writes articles in magazines
such as ProArb and Good Woodworking.
Drivelink Training delivers off-the-shelf and bespoke training for a wide range of clients,
covering chainsaw maintenance and cross-cutting, felling, dealing with windblown trees,
emergency treeworks and assisted felling operations, as well as tree climbing and aerial
rescue, aerial cutting and rigging / dismantling.
Follow Drivelink Training on Facebook at http://facebook.com/drivelink or visit the website
at http://drivelink.training
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