Forest sale - please sign petition if you are against

[LilyBolero]

Petition is here if you are against the Government selling off large areas of England's forests to private developers, who may turn them into Centerparcs type resorts or golf courses.

PETITION

If you want to know which are up for sale, there is a map here MAP

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Please sign if you want to safeguard the forests for our children's future!

Done

if you've got no time this is a very succinct Q&A from the telegraph

getting better at links!

I have signed, it is awful that they are suggesting this, it won't raise much money.

I am sure the forests could be more profitably managed if necessary without being sold. They do support jobs already, and maybe they could be used to create more jobs too.

TapselteerieO - if there is profit to be made, then all the more reason for the forests to be sold to the private sector..it is unfair of publicly-funded bodies to compete in a marketplace with private firms.

Publicly-funded organisations = consume taxes.

Private organisations = pay taxes.

No-brainer.

signed.

pascoe do you believe that all public spaces should be sold off including parks, beaches, woods, forests, areas of outstanding natural beauty, hills, commons etc etc. That they should all be sold off to the highest bidder to do whatever they wish.

pascoe, in a world of consumerism, materialism and commercialism, it is a wonderful necessity to be able to go somewhere that is free, to be able to just walk, without thinking about the 'price' ticket, asking 'was that worth the money?', calculating if you can afford it today etc, and a great life lesson to kids that some of the best times are to be had for free, just by enjoying what nature gives us.

There is no guarantee that these areas would remain open to the public.

There is also no guarantee that they would be preserved:

the mirror and this quote appears in other sources as well.

Very conservative approach that if you can make a quick buck you should, at any cost. And that if "poor" people (ie anyone except the super-rich elite) want to enjoy things like trees, then they should pull their socks up and work so they can afford some gated acres. Why should "commoners" be allowed access to things like this?

Signed.

These woodlands belong to the English public, therefore we are the ones who should decide what is to become of them, so there should be a vote on this issue surely?!

The forestry commission have huge expertise in land management and to remove the forests from their ownership and to reduce the forestry commission to one that is effectively an advisory body only is inevitably going to lead to a deterioration in the quality of some of our woodlands. Some new landowners may do a superb job, others certainly won't.

"so there should be a vote on this issue surely"

This is, I believe, a part of the Public Bodies bill. That's passing through the House of Lords at the moment and will, at some point, end up in the Commons.

If you want to do something about this is might well be worth writing to your MP asking about their voting intentions on this when it does come before them.

There's a whole lot of information on the bill here:
services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-11/publicbodieshl.html

thanks for that Badgers :)

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Apparently there is a timber firm already lined up for 80% of Devon's forests.

If anyone is under the impression that timber firms want to buy our forests so they can look after them carefully, I think they are a touch naive TBH.

Did you know that income from timber harvesting is tax exempt?

Or that if you buy a woodland after a minimum of 2 years that value is exempt from inheritance tax?

Can't see either helping with the deficit really.

Oh and there was the example of the wood the FC sold to a private landowner for £60,000 and the land owner then claimed woodland grants to the tune of £55,000.

Lining rich folks pockets, stripping communities of resources, doing nothing to solve our financial problems

public forestry consultation have your say either way

Signed.

I wonder what they'll sell next - oops, silly me, there's nothing left...

Signed.

Link to an article explaining how/why the sell off is going to cost more money than it will save. Largely because there is no inheritance tax to pay on woodland. The sell off is clearly not about reducing the deficit...

www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/13/english-forests-lost-tax-revenues

done, see westonbirt on there, this is terrible.

please email or write to your MP

They are taking a vote on Wednesday on whether to remove the Forestry Commission (and therefore the public forest estate) from the Public Bodies Bill.

There are also sample letters on saveourforests.co.uk

Thanks

sorry posted this on another thread too, just keen to get it out to as many folk as possible

Signed it.

Will now go and write to my MP.

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