Northumberland Forest plans come under fire

Members of Northumberland County Council’s Communities and Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee were given a presentation by Mark Childs, the forest’s programme director, detailing plans to plant millions more trees across Northumberland in the coming years.

The Defra-funded project will see trees of various types planted in locations up and down the county in a bid to tackle climate change and create a thriving timber industry.

The first phase, announced in autumn 2019 and officially launched in November, will see three new forests created by 2024, covering a 500 hectares. Councillors were told that landowners and farmers would be supported to create and expand woodland.

The presentation was requested as councillors on the committee felt they were not well enough informed about the forest – and Liberal Democrat leader Jeff Reid was unconvinced by the plans.

He said: “I don’t know why we’ve called it the Great Northumberland Forest when it isn’t. All of us have in our minds a forest which is a vast unbroken collection of trees.

“What I’m seeing is it is going to be lots here there and everywhere. This is about the Forestry Commission growing more trees.

“I thought this was about climate change. I didn’t think we would be talking about the Forestry Commission buying land, planting trees there and harvesting them in 20 years.”

Mr Childs replied: “The Great Northumberland Forest isn’t one new big forest, it is a vision, or a plan, to see more woodlands and trees on the landscape.

“You can have the best of both worlds, you can create habitats and product a product and the income which can be reinvested into that woodland. They have multiple benefits.”

Wooler councillor Mark Mather also raised concerns about the impact on farming jobs, if agricultural land was scarified to make way for more woodland.

He said: “The council has had to set away a future farming review. The statement saying you are going to grow the economic area – how have you come to that? Has it been worked out that the loss of agricultural jobs will be more than covered by the economic value of timber?”