SaveOurForests Campaign isn't a side issue it is vital!!!
RonB
Posts: 3,984
Roadie in peace here but please keep reading
A recent article in the Telegraph has now let the cat out of the bag...
"Campaigners have released a letter from the Government suggesting that cyclists and horse riders have no future guaranteed use of public woodland when 40,000 hectares of forest are sold off to private companies and charities"
That's the tip of the iceberg - only accounting for 15% of the land, which could be handed over to private concerns, communities or charitable trusts and the like. I'm not saying it is perfect, but only the Forestry Commission (FC) has any experience in creating a balance between wildlife, timber and recreation on such a wide scale.
The cost of having the FC manage England's public forests is less than 30p a year for each person in England. All alternative models suggested within the current consultation will actually cost more (source - DEFRA's own impact assessment!).
The current campaign now needs your support more than ever, please check out the following sites for more info.
http://www.saveourforests.co.uk
http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/save-our-forests#petition
Cheers, Ron
A recent article in the Telegraph has now let the cat out of the bag...
"Campaigners have released a letter from the Government suggesting that cyclists and horse riders have no future guaranteed use of public woodland when 40,000 hectares of forest are sold off to private companies and charities"
That's the tip of the iceberg - only accounting for 15% of the land, which could be handed over to private concerns, communities or charitable trusts and the like. I'm not saying it is perfect, but only the Forestry Commission (FC) has any experience in creating a balance between wildlife, timber and recreation on such a wide scale.
The cost of having the FC manage England's public forests is less than 30p a year for each person in England. All alternative models suggested within the current consultation will actually cost more (source - DEFRA's own impact assessment!).
The current campaign now needs your support more than ever, please check out the following sites for more info.
http://www.saveourforests.co.uk
http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/save-our-forests#petition
Cheers, Ron
0
Comments
-
-
sheepsteeth wrote:can we ban these threads as spam please?
Why on earth do you think this is spam? I'm just pointing out something which might be of interest to other Forum members. Something I care very passionately about. Something to share, isn't that what the Forum is supposed to be about? Good grief.0 -
Sir I apologize... :oops: :oops: :oops: ... and stand corrected.0 -
-
Don't ban it, keep it coming.
Its needed to keep the issue at the fore.
Not too hard to skip to next topic if already read/ signed up/ disagreed/ etc ...
0 -
sheepsteeth wrote:can we ban these threads as spam please?
Ill spam your ban in a minute.0 -
Spam my arse. If there are a lot of threads it's because this is very important to our sport, not to mention our country.
In the time if took you to post your clever links to all those threads, you could have emailed your MP about the forest sell-off.
0 -
Briggo wrote:sheepsteeth wrote:can we ban these threads as spam please?
Ill spam your ban in a minute.
You havn't got a good ban spamming in you.
I do feel if this topic is really of such relevance and urgency, it should be made a sticky. Not have a thread a day created for them.0 -
HebdenBiker wrote:
In the time if took you to post your clever links to all those threads, you could have emailed your MP about the forest sell-off.
no i couldnt, it only took me about 10 seconds (to do a forum search about a subject that no one can do anything about).
0 -
Part of me kinda wants the forests to be sold off. The resulting mass trespassing will be a lot of fun.
So shove that up your placebocracy.*
* Not aimed at anyone particularly, I just like the word.0 -
Northwind wrote:wordnumb wrote:So shove that up your placebocracy.*
That doesn't sound good, Brian Molko's not ever a very good singer, can't see that this qualifies him to be king
He must be good at something, and as music isn't his bag.... who knows?
Funny how they named a drug after his band. Someone in the pharmacology industry has cloth ears.0 -
wordnumb wrote:Northwind wrote:wordnumb wrote:So shove that up your placebocracy.*
That doesn't sound good, Brian Molko's not ever a very good singer, can't see that this qualifies him to be king
He must be good at something, and as music isn't his bag.... who knows?
Funny how they named a drug after his band. Someone in the pharmacology industry has cloth ears.
<pedant mode on>
Placebo = a drug? Er, no...
<pedant mode off>0 -
Monkeypump wrote:
<pedant mode on>
Placebo = a drug? Er, no...
<pedant mode off>
A drug is a substance used to treat an illness. It doesn't necessarily have to do so chemically. So, Placebo = a drug? Er, yup!
Anyway, we were talking about burning down all these pesky forests....0 -
i think the equivalent to this for roadies would be for Mr Bigsticks to introduce tax for cycles.
which he's probably considered tbh.0 -
posted the links on my facebook page............. again, cant stress how important it is to get as many signatures as posseble0
-
:roll:wordnumb wrote:A drug is a substance used to treat an illness. It doesn't necessarily have to do so chemically. So, Placebo = a drug? Er, yup!
and thus I'm reminded why I don't frequent this part of the forum very often !Science adjusts it’s beliefs based on what’s observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved0 -
Part of me actually wishes I had millions in the bank, just so I could open up a massive MTB theme park in a private woods, complete with bike washing slaves a bit like at any dodgy hand car wash, a Maccy D's and a mega expensive car park complete with wardens in WW2 uniform, flashing billboard signs everywhere for all sorts of brands and maybe some big speakers playing subliminal "you must buy...." messages. I'd then get BikeRadar to invest in the venture as the resultant outrage on the forums would do wonders for their traffic and ad revenue...........
Seriously though, I know a lot of people are worried, but nobody seems to have remotely thought that there may actually be people who ARE keen to run a successful forest enterprise. I've detailed before how it could work, if anyone can be ars*d to look back through my posts to about 4 months back (I can't, capitalist time pressures unfortunately), you'll find what I am on about.0 -
andyrm wrote:Seriously though, I know a lot of people are worried, but nobody seems to have remotely thought that there may actually be people who ARE keen to run a successful forest enterprise. I've detailed before how it could work, if anyone can be ars*d to look back through my posts to about 4 months back (I can't, capitalist time pressures unfortunately), you'll find what I am on about.
If there were so many private companies out there interested in doing it, they would have done it already, not all forests are owned by the FC...
Surprisingly its not a mahoosive money making scheme.0 -
Yup, as far as I know there's 2 trail centres on private land, Drumlanrig and Llandegla, and Llandegla's largely built and run with public money so that the landowners can make money (and is paid for from the same budgets that would otherwise have gone to the FC). Not a great precedent, and exactly what people are talking about when they say that the clearout is certain to cost us money, private forestry will still suck up grants and payouts, just that it keeps the profits.
Drumlanrig's a great example of how it could work though, in that case it's the Duke having a decent percentage of all the land in scotland and being quite attracted to intersting things to do with it, plus Ric Allsop having the drive and inspiration to make it work. And it's fab.
But here's the real booter... The government's already guaranteed that taxpayer's money will go to forestry operators for commercial logging- they'll be paid to maintain existing access, paid to reforest after felling, and so on- and these payouts are expected in most cases to actually be more than the revenue from the sale or lease of the land... Even though these will be profit making even without the public funds.
But, if you're a charity, then your government payouts are a temporary thing and over time you'll be expected to stop being reliant on public money.Uncompromising extremist0 -
andyrm wrote:Part of me actually wishes I had millions in the bank, just so I could open up a massive MTB theme park in a private woods, complete with bike washing slaves a bit like at any dodgy hand car wash, a Maccy D's and a mega expensive car park complete with wardens in WW2 uniform, flashing billboard signs everywhere for all sorts of brands and maybe some big speakers playing subliminal "you must buy...." messages. I'd then get BikeRadar to invest in the venture as the resultant outrage on the forums would do wonders for their traffic and ad revenue...........
Sod that... i'd buy the land and keep it for myself! Screw you lot
0 -
bike washing slaves a bit like at any dodgy hand car wash
those places are all money laundering schemes: cash transaction and who can tell whether they washed 5 or 50 cars that day without actually staking the place out?!
hmmm simlar to a trail centre car park; 0 -
Here’s my idea:
- Forests become a “Social Enterprise” operated by a non-profit company limited by government guarantee to ensure all supplier/client obligations are met.
- In the terms of the land transfer to the non-profit company, caveats regarding access and sustainability/responsible forestry are put in place.
- The non-profit company should be a conglomerate of interested parties including paper pulp manufacturers, commercial wood suppliers and ‘back to work’ schemes.
- The organisation would run and operate the forest, visitor centre and car parking facilities, with forestry work managed by ex FC contractors.
- Given many trail centres are in deprived areas, the cafe, visitor centre, trail maintenance digging would be done by locals on a back-to-work scheme, supported by the proposed new grants/topups to get those who are capable of working into work. Staff overheads would therefore remain low.
- Income streams would come from the car park, cafe, bike wash and of course forestry operations.
- Engage local pubs, B&Bs etc to contribute to marketing costs in return for advertising spaces on the centre’s website – the centre’s website/marketing could then easily be at zero cost to the operation.
- Charge a rent to a bike shop operator to have an on-site shop.
I’ve actually discussed this with several people including a venture capitalist and corporate equity expert and the owner of a small chain of bike shops, as well as a family member with experience in the event catering and B&B industry, they all agree that if a coherent structure like this was put in place from day one, there’s plenty of financial benefits for all concerned, including the people who would be employed by such an enterprise.
Of course the Guardian readers will hate it because it is no longer public sector, but then neither is John Lewis and they do a pretty damn good job of operating a social enterprise and turning a decent profit while operating ethically.........0 -
RonB wrote:Briggo wrote:If there were so many private companies out there interested in doing it, they would have done it already, not all forests are owned by the FC...
Surprisingly its not a mahoosive money making scheme.
18% managed by FC, rest is private sector already.
Erm, thanks for that...0
