UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 281-i

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

Rosliston Forestry Centre, Burton Road, Swadlincote, DE12 8JX

THE NATIONAL FOREST

Wednesday 20 January 2010

MR RICHARD BELDON, MS EMMA FLATT, MR ROBIN NEILSON

and MS LOUISE ADAMS

MS SOPHIE CHURCHILL, MR SIMON EVANS, MR ROBIN PELLEW

and COUNCILLOR HEATHER WHEELER

COUNCILLOR MICHAEL STANTON, MS DEBBIE CHESTERMAN,

MS MONICA HUDSON, MS LAURA PARRY and MS CLARE O'REILLEY

Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 85

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

Oral Evidence

Taken before the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee

on Wednesday 20 January 2010

Members present

Mr Michael Jack, in the Chair

Lynne Jones

David Lepper

Dr Gavin Strang

________________

Witnesses: Mr Richard Beldon, who works with businesses in the National Forest Area; Ms Emma Flatt, who runs a woodland contracting business; Ms Louise Adams, a local resident and Forest user; and Mr Robin Neilson, a landowner from Catton Hall, Staffordshire, gave evidence.

Q1 Chairman: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this one-off evidence session for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee of the House of Commons inquiry into The National Forest. May I welcome all those who are about to give evidence, those who are going to give evidence a little later and those who have come to observe our proceedings. I thought I would start a minute or two before two because there are one or two things that I wanted to say by way of introduction and to explain how we are going to conduct the proceedings this afternoon. The Committee is always delighted when it can get away from the normal area where it takes evidence in the Portcullis House facility in the House of Commons. We are delighted to provide an opportunity for people outside Westminster not only to participate in what we do but also for people to have sight of what the Select Committee does. Our task is to shadow the work of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and to look at the way they conduct their stewardship of policy, and write reports accordingly. For some who are assiduous readers of the newspapers yesterday or listeners to Radio Four you will possibly have picked up the fact that the latest report that the Committee has published on the subject of waste covered a broad area and attracted a fair amount of interest, particularly in terms of how we were going to deal with issues connected with litter. Today's inquiry arose because The National Forest came and talked about what they were doing. The Committee were anxious to return to an area where they had previously written a report and where there was broad spread interest amongst members of the Committee in the subject of forestry. I think it illustrates the fact that from time to time whilst the Committee may paint, if one can put it this way, on a big canvas, occasionally it is right to focus on a smaller scale activity like the work of The National Forest, which does not always get the national profile that perhaps it deserves. It would be remiss of me by way of introduction if I did not just say a word about a member of this Committee who would have been here today but who, sadly, died just after Christmas, and that is David Taylor, the Member for Leicester North West. Everybody on the Committee, and indeed in the House of Commons, had nothing but the highest of regard for David. Public tribute has very properly been made for his work as a parliamentarian and we, too, as a Committee put on record our profound appreciation for his contribution to our work. The sad thing is that David and I had both announced our retirement at the next election and we often talked about what we were going to do. One of the passions of David's life was indeed The National Forest. I think he had an interest in contributing to its work after Parliament and should that have been the case he asked whether I would act as a referee for him. I was honoured to have been asked. I would have been delighted to have penned a glowing reference because he was a remarkable MP in the way that he involved himself in everything that was local. He was tenacious in everything he did, and certainly in the way that he conducted himself on our Committee, he did not let witnesses off lightly. So I suppose for some witnesses today that might be a relief, but for us it is sad that he is not here. Can I also record the fact that we are in Mark Todd's constituency and Mark also takes a great interest in the work of The National Forest. He, too, was a member of this Committee until a few years ago and I know continues to maintain an interest in the work that we undertake. Paddy Tipping, whose constituency also touches on the forest, is a great supporter of the work of the forest, and he would have been with us but he has been double manning another Committee and they have been looking at National Policy Statements in the field of energy and so he has reluctantly had to put his effort into that Committee, but I know in spirit and in mind he would be with us. We have a lot of parliamentary support and interest in the work of the forest. The way we are going to conduct this public evidence session, which I have to say for anybody who contributes, is on the record but what you say is protected by parliamentary privilege, we usually say at the end that what you say cannot be undone but what you do say will be down on the record, and for those who are unfamiliar with the process that is the way it works. May I just pay tribute to Mary Krelle who is here from Gurney's and who has the hapless task of recording for the next couple of hours everything that we say. The advantage of course is that you can read about it afterwards. The way we are going to conduct things in one minute more is that we will have three-quarters of an hour of evidence from a panel of users of the forest and then for approximately another three-quarters of an hour we will take evidence from the National Forest Company. I am delighted to see that the audience chairs are full because we have left some time at the end for contributions from members of the public. We always value the perspectives that you bring to our proceedings. Without further ado, may I first introduce the members of the Committee. You can see the names around here. The Select Committee is formed from all the major parties in the House of Commons and we try very hard in what we do to achieve our agreement by means of discussion and consensus. I want to introduce the first set of witnesses. We have Emma Flatt, who runs a woodland contracting business in the forest. Next to her is Richard Beldon, who works with a business in the forest area. Louise Adams is a local resident and forest user. Mr Robin Neilson is a landowner from Catton Hall in Staffordshire. Can I ask each one of you just to start by giving us a little pen picture from your standpoint about what are your main uses of The National Forest and perhaps you could provide us with some examples of why you think it is important either in your daily life or indeed in your business connections. I am going to asking Emma if she would be kind enough to start and respond to my first question.

Ms Flatt: I will try and keep it brief but really our business is completely interwoven in The National Forest. We established ourselves as a forestry business about five years ago. We chose The National Forest as a place to move to and set up our forestry business and from there we contacted the National Forest Company and gained business help and grants to help us in certain areas of our business. Really from that time we have always had contact with them, either working with them directly or through implementing grant schemes, so, yes, we have a lot of involvement with The National Forest.

Q2 Chairman: Just put some perspective on that. How many people do you employ and what kind of a forestry business is it?

Ms Flatt: There are two of us but then we work with other sub-contractors so it is like a network of subcontractors really. We do not have any direct employees but we use a number of different companies to help us.

Q3 Chairman: What do you do with these two employees and your subcontractors?

Ms Flatt: That is what everyone asks us.

Q4 Chairman: Is it a secret?

Ms Flatt: It is a secret, yes! In the winter we design planting schemes, so we do consultancy, and then we implement those planting schemes. We actually do the planting work ourselves but then we sub-contract out any fencing work or machine-based work. It is amazing how many trees two people can plant in a day.

Q5 Chairman: So that is a good advertisement for somebody who is looking to have their own part of the forest. Thank you very much indeed. Richard?

Mr Beldon: Good afternoon. My name is Richard Beldon and I am a personal user and a business user of The National Forest. From a personal point of view, I run in the forest, I dog-walk in the forest, I cycle in the forest, I bird-watch in the forest. It is everything that I do and a lot of my personal hobbies involve a big part of the countryside and obviously The National Forest, because I live in Donisthorpe, is right in the hub of it. I like the woodland areas and the water areas. Over the last 15 years the turnaround has been incredible in some of the countryside in the local area particularly close to me where the pits were, if you like. From a business point of view, I run a local web directory that encourages local people to use local services. I only allow local businesses on the site within a 20-mile radius from where I live, which pretty much is The National Forest boundary, which is a lucky thing. It is two years old. I have 637 businesses on the site, ranging from small one-man-bands that run business-to-business operations, up to the Leicester Tigers, so it as small and AS broad as that. I see The National Forest as a great opportunity from a business point of view and a commercial point of view in the way of fund-raising, awareness, bringing people into the forest and the like.

Q6 Chairman: You have not managed to persuade the Leicester Tigers to come and do a bit of endurance training in the forest yet, have you?

Mr Beldon: I used to work up at Champney Springs at the health resort just up the road. I was a manager there for 15 years and they used to train with us regularly on site because we had an excellent facility for training but, no, they did not use any endurance training within the forest. Frank Bruno did.

Ms Adams: I suppose I use the forest as a recreational user. We moved to Moira about three or four years ago and the reason we chose Moira was because of where it was located and the atmosphere around it. I tend to go walking a lot, riding and, as Richard said, bird-watching and just using the area. When family come and visit, because they live in Manchester, they absolutely love it because there is no countryside like this around where my sister and everybody lives and they absolutely love it, so we spend an awful lot of time just playing in the forest areas really and exploring the free areas and also centres like this because they are just very different from all the other bits that are going on in other areas.

Mr Neilson: Firstly, can I welcome you to The National Forest. It is very nice to see some people from London up here to see what has been going on over the last 12 or 15 years. I have been involved with The National Forest since before it started. I sat on a C&A committee to discuss the possible implications of The National Forest, and I have to say there were certain things that worried me about it, such as it may be designated as a special area with different planning controls and so on, and interference from outside bodies, but ever since I have been involved - and we started with two of the first Tender schemes, the first bits of planting in The National Forest at home - I have got nothing but praise and support for The National Forest, everything that it has done and that it is trying to do. Personally I have planted about 150 acres of woodland on our estate which is now replacing agriculture from the point of view of the business we run, which is leisure and recreational activities. We now attract as many people as we can on to the estate to run, cycle, have concerts, caravan rallies, trek, corporate, private, public, in any way we can, and the woodland provides the backdrop to allow us to attract people into the area.

Q7 Chairman: In terms of the sort of area from which you attract people to come and enjoy your facilities, how wide an area would you say it was?

Mr Neilson: The area of new woodland is 150 acres so another 150 areas. The area that the public use is about 600 acres and then the farming estate stretches beyond that.

Q8 Chairman: From how far away do the visitors who come to use it come?

Mr Neilson: Nationally.

Q9 Chairman: Nationally?

Mr Neilson: It is particularly because we have a lot of national events. For example, if it is a 24-hour mountain bike marathon we will attract people from Cornwall and Scotland and organised course events.

Q10 Chairman: That sounds like a mouthwatering array of activities. You have all made it very clear that you are in the forest working and living in it. Perhaps, Richard, I could start with you to give me a sense of how other local people view being in the forest. You are obviously an enthusiast, you are aware of its identity, but is that the case for others who live in the forest? Do they actually know that that is where they are and how do they feel about it?

Mr Beldon: I think it now has a national identity. The coverage in the local press that comes to the public - and I am looking at it from a consumer point of view now rather than a business - means they have more of an idea as to what it is doing. I think it has a visual impact now whereas ten years ago it was not that visual to see. It was The National Forest but "where's the trees?" Now you can actually see the trees. You used to see the signs and not see a lot of stuff and now you can come in and you can see the effect that the reforestation has had and the planting and the landscaping. It has had a massive impact and I think the locals are becoming more aware of what the forest can offer them as individuals. If I can add from a commercial point of view, I think that is still an area that can be grown in a huge way. They have tapped into it and they have started it and I think it is a case now of trying to broaden the impact that they have made already.

Q11 Chairman: So, Louise, what do your neighbours think about the forest? Do you meet each other and have a little chat each day, "How's the forest doing?" or is it something that pops up occasionally in conversation? How much is it a part of life?

Ms Adams: My direct neighbour who I speak to quite a lot has lived in the forest all of her life, and so we have had quite a lot of conversations about how she views it because obviously it has changed an awful lot in her 80 years, and she is very enthused about everything that is going on because obviously she has seen a lot of changes from when it used to be all pit and everything to now it is all forestry. She really, really loves it. It is part of the reason why she has stayed here as it has changed. She has had conversations with me where she thought about moving on ten or 15 years ago when she was widowed because she wanted to go to an area that had more amenities and everything, but because of what it was bringing in as the forest has grown up around her, she has wanted to stay. I think that is the same for a lot of my friends as well in the area. The friends that I have made very much feel that they have moved to the area, if they have moved into it, because of what it offers them; the countryside, the actual feeling of relaxation and of being in the environment rather than in the city centres and things like that. For a lot of people I know it is very much part of their culture and their feelings of what they want to do with their life,

Q12 Chairman: Robin, give us an answer to the question but perhaps with a focus on landowners. You said that initially you were a little sceptical for the reasons you have mentioned as to the credentials of the forest, but you then observed very positively what has happened. How do other landowners regard the forest as it is now?

Mr Neilson: I really cannot think of anyone that I have met, whether they are in the forest or out of the forest, that does not like the concept. In this overcrowded island with development around every corner a forest has to be the best thing to develop on your doorstep. Without any doubt, in my mind anyway, most people are very positive about the concept. Landowners obviously are usually encouraged to participate to give up land to the forest. I suppose I am surprised that more landowners have not given up more land to the forest. You cannot criticise the financial incentives but it is a hard one to crack and a lot depends on the commodity prices and things. They are certainly not critical of the concept but they may not be quite as involved as each other.

Q13 Chairman: We might well return to that. Emma, from the point of view of a small almost micro-sized business how do other smaller businesses view the forest?

Ms Flatt: It is how most people earn their money. Really The National Forest is made up of small businesses like us who work together to get bigger jobs done, so there is a whole network of bigger and medium-sized businesses but most forestry businesses are pretty small and everybody works together and, yes, The National Forest is very important to all of us. At the beginning when Nick and I set up our business we were travelling a lot further away. It just gets so inefficient having to travel halfway across the country to do work and now 80-90 per cent of our work is in The National Forest. I think a lot of people feel the same, a lot of small businesses.

Chairman: Good. David?

Q14 David Lepper: You obviously love The National Forest for a range of different reasons. Can we think a bit about what the purpose of the forest is. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs says in its strategy for forest and woodlands that there are three main aims: to provide environmental improvements; to provide economic regeneration; and to provide social benefits. Could I ask each of you in turn which you think is the most important of those three aims from your point of view or are they all equally important?

Ms Adams: I think they are all very important areas. I suppose for myself I would say the environmental aspect is very heavy on my part. I love seeing the fact that we are actually putting something back rather than taking everything away from it because I think a lot of things that we do detract from our country rather than add to it. I very much feel that the fact that we are planting and adding things back really means a lot to me.

Mr Beldon: I feel the same way. I could not pinpoint one that I feel is a stronger strap-line than the other. They all have an equal standing and create what The National Forest is and what it stands for. From the point of view of everybody that lives in it and visits it, I think all three have to be very strong. I do not think you can put one above the other and I certainly would not want to.

Ms Flatt: For me personally the environment is definitely the most important aspect of the forest. I know the others are very important in implementing it, but in terms of woodland covering this country, eco-system functioning, diversity and sustainability, it has to be the environment for me.

Mr Neilson: I have to add my voice to the others and agree. I think that it has to be financially viable. It has to bring economics to it because none of these things can work unless there is money to manage them and generate them, but they all fit together and I think they are all equally important.

Q15 Lynne Jones: During our little tour before we came here we have seen examples of how the forest has enhanced the natural environment. Having regard to the money that has been spent, has this been good value for money and can you think of any projects that you have really been impressed with that you felt were good and we ought to have more of this?

Mr Beldon: From my point of view I think Conkers was a jewel in the crown to start off with. It was something that was in a horrible piece of land that was reclaimed, it was just hummocks and hills, it had no identity, no nothing, it was smack in the middle of the mining community, and they turned it into something that was in time going to be something for everybody. It was a great opportunity to say what The National Forest can do and something that could happen in quite a short time. It has doubled in size and it has doubled the sort of things it can offer from a business and a consumer point of view. It is not age-restricted, there is something there for everybody, it has good access for disabled people and educational purposes. It was spot on to users as something very early doors and I think it has gone from strength to strength. Again I think there are things that can still be done in that but, yes, for me that is it.

Mr Neilson: I do not think I can think of much that I do not like about it or anybody else does not like about it.

Q16 Lynne Jones: Has it been good value for money?

Mr Neilson: Yes, I really do. It is such an impressive and exciting project as a whole. Obviously it is going to take time and the word I keep using myself is it is "growing"; it is still a very young thing. I think there are only benefits to come from it and all the directions that it is going in, it is just going to improve. The benefits may come later having spent the money to start with, but it certainly looks as if it is going to bring enormous benefits to all concerned.

Ms Adams: I would say the area that I like most and use are the cycle paths because they have just opened up a load more around Moira and around the reservoir and they are connecting all of the individual areas which are planted up. They have gone through sheep fields into little parts of the forest. It makes the forest very cohesive, the fact that you can now go from one area to another, and it all connects and it makes it feel more unified. I think it is fantastic and that helps.

Ms Flatt: In terms of value for money firstly, I think someone has to make an investment at some point because forestry in this country has had a chequered past, let us say, and has always been managed on a very short-term basis. Our woods have been pretty much decimated. If you compare this country to European countries such as Germany and France you cannot really compare their woodlands to ours, and I think someone at some point has got to invest in the woodlands in this country and do it right. It is undoubtedly value for money but, again, it is a long-term investment, as forestry is, and the benefits may not be seen for a long time, but it is definitely good value for money. In terms of examples of benefits, I have helped on many community days that they have run at some sites at Moira and Shortheath - in fact I think Louise came to one - which everybody absolutely loved. You get people of all ages, children planting trees, people planting trees for commemorative purposes and everybody absolutely loves it. Then there are classes of school children through the grant schemes who come and help plant as well, so it involves people. Everybody is just so enthusiastic about it.

Q17 Lynne Jones: Robin, could I ask a question just for you. We have heard about your woodfuel system. Could you tell us about that and whether it is a model that could be replicated and what the scope for extension of this kind of system is?

Mr Neilson: It is a very topical point at the moment - energy, the environment and global warming, et cetera - and anybody who has anything to do with forestry will know that there is a by-product, which is wood, and certainly for the first 50 years there is waste wood. The woodfuel burning industry is developing and growing up and I took advantage of a scheme that was up and running and put a wood chip boiler in, and it has been a huge success. It has run now for three years without a hiccough. We use our own wood from our own woodlands and in two years' time I will start thinning some of the first woods that were planted under The National Forest to use them for woodfuel for our wood chip boiler and we will be able to sell it to others as well as chips or timber, so as far as I am concerned it is a perfect match.

Q18 Lynne Jones: So how big an area is actually heated by the scheme?

Mr Neilson: It heats a three thousand square foot block of offices. In fact, it could do more; the boiler is bigger than that.

Q19 Lynne Jones: I am from Birmingham and one of the issues is access to supplies. Is that something that is being considered. Perhaps we ought to ask that of the Company in terms of making sure that if we encourage people to adopt these kinds of systems they will be able to get the supplies of fuel?

Mr Neilson: Supply is a tricky one because if you get some big users they will take most of the supply that is there will which leave the smaller users finding difficulty sourcing enough timber. I think some work needs to be done on how much wood chip could be produced from the woodlands. It very quickly runs out and it does not grow again for another 25 years. I think it is something one has to be wary of. There is no doubt that any woodland there is will go on producing for its lifetime.

Q20 Chairman: You focused on wood chips and we have seen examples of that when we did an inquiry into energy generation some years ago in South West Germany. On the Continent there is a big industry in wood pellets. Is that a technology which you could adapt to and have in future? Obviously going back to Lynne's point, a sack of wood pellets is a lot more portable than a bulk amount of wood chip.

Mr Neilson: That is the point - to reduce the bulk - and transporting chip around the place is very expensive, so to make it more economical, if you can pellet it, you can take it further and it is cleaner and it is easier to transport.

Q21 Chairman: Is that something which is being actively pursued within the forest area, because the impression I get is that you have a self-sustaining situation for your own business but that is, roughly speaking, where it is going to stay?

Mr Neilson: I think the pelleting will move with the demand so if there becomes a bigger demand out of the area then we can pellet wood chips and send them further out, but the technology is there, it is up and running. There happens to be a large pelleting factory that has just gone bankrupt for another reason. It was just on the outskirts but they were involved with miscanthus and they pelleted all sorts of stuff in there. They are not actually running but the technology is there.

Q22 Dr Strang: Two questions, if I may. First of all, what has been the main economic impact of the development of The National Forest in the area? Secondly, many businesses are closely and intimately linked to the forest, but where you have sought financial support from the National Forest Company how easy has that been and how good are they at providing support for local businesses?

Ms Flatt: Obviously I have felt a great economic benefit from The National Forest. I think they have been very careful. They have tried very hard to build up an economy. They ran what was called the WEBS programme for a number of years, which was the Woodland Economy Business Support programme, and that was what we started with. The biggest benefit to us was the management advice we got so we had a business adviser assigned to us who then made us write a business plan. Better than the grant and better than anything is really the writing of the business plan and having someone to connect us to all the other similar businesses in the forest, to make us all talk to each other and help each other. The grants obviously have been good. I found accessing the grants a very straightforward process but we did have to write a business plan, which I think you should have to to gain money, because it makes people think about what they are investing in. Obviously some people might have found that aspect more challenging but there was help available for people to write business plans.

Q23 Dr Strang: Richard, the main economic impact?

Mr Beldon: Certainly from an economic impact point of view my business is within The National Forest. I would not be here because I use that as part of my strap-line. It has had a massive impact for myself personally. I know a lot of businesses because I do a lot of business networking that similar to Emma have received support financially and, from a managerial point of view, whether it is a bit of forestry or woodland businesses or whether they be bush tracks or the like, and they have always found The National Forest a useful support tool for them. I am only just starring to find out how to use The National Forest to my advantage. I am certainly doing that now and want them to get the best out of me as well which can certainly happen. I see that as a two-way thing.

Mr Neilson: I think it has done the area an enormous amount of good. It is bringing people in as a tourist destination. There are a lot of new businesses springing up all the time to encourage this branding. Right on our doorstep we have the Armed Forces National Memorial Arboretum, which you may have heard about, which is growing hugely. It is an enormous success. One reason that came here was because of The National Forest. All the small businesses that are generated here and myself as well have benefited from the fact we have been able to take advantage of the grants and in turn bring more people into the area, so I think all round it has been a very good thing.

Q24 Dr Strang: Just a follow-up question to you, Robin. I heard you saying earlier to the Chairman that really all the landowners were sympathetic to the National Forest Company. I am just wondering whether there have not been any arguments in relation to the conflict of interest between growing trees on land and retaining it for agricultural production or other purposes? Has there been any great controversy or argument along those lines?

Mr Neilson: I cannot think of any conflict at the moment. If I happen to have a loud and noisy rock concert on my farm, my neighbour might complain because he did not like the music, or if it generates a lot of rabbits or something, but, no, there have not been any conflicts that I am aware of at all.

Q25 Chairman: In terms of support from the actual National Forest Company, to those of you who are in business, do you look to them or to other agencies for assistance in the first instance or at all? Obviously you are both very motivated.

Mr Neilson: Yes, it depends on how specialised the advice is. We are in the forest, part of it, involved with it. I have found them very, very helpful in the past. If you have a problem and ask them, if they cannot answer it, they will help and find out, and you are able to discuss with them general plans for the future of the forest and things.

Q26 Chairman: Does that include specifically discussions about the grant arrangements and future funding?

Mr Neilson: Yes, definitely. It is helpful to know where The National Forest is going, what they are doing, what they are planning, and then one might be able to fit one's own plans in with that and see if one can work together to benefit both sides.

Mr Beldon: From my point of view I went into The National Forest with very much an open book and said, "I want to help you as much as I can because of the business I am and the businesses that I support. What can you do?" We have had two very useful meetings in ways that can help The National Forest and myself on a commercial basis to raise their profile and would obviously be good for my business as well. I have had nothing but a very positive attitude. I asked to use their logo and they were very quick to say yes, it is fine. It was a very simple process but one that has had a massive benefit to my business, so I have got nothing but good news to say about the support from The National Forest from my point of view. I came in with a very open mind and they have been very supportive and no doubt will continue to do so.

Q27 David Lepper: Something like ten million people are living within an hour of The National Forest and the National Forest Company does say it gives a higher priority to helping to improve access to the natural environment. Louise, you gave us some examples earlier of your family and visitors from elsewhere visiting. Could I ask each of you, do you feel that, in general, The National Forest is accessible to that wider public? Are there parts of it or are there particular projects within it where perhaps that accessibility could be improved? Louise, since you raised this issue initially, any further comment on that?

Ms Adams: I was going to say I have always found it really accessible and, as I say, family and friends that have come to visit have always found the areas that we have gone to really easy either to walk round and to use, because I have disabled members of my family, so the new paths that are being formed are very well structured, they are flat. There are obviously other aspects where they are more rural areas that are for more serious walkers and things like that. You need within the forest to create interest for different aspects of people. I think there is a mix of accessibility features around the forest.

Q28 David Lepper: So there is something for everybody?

Ms Adams: Yes.

Ms Flatt: I am probably not the best person to answer this question, in a way, as because I work in the forest and we drive around the forest, in my recreation time I do not actually go walking in the forest. I tend to sit at home and watch the telly! But from listening to friends I know a lot of people who cycle in the forest. That is on a very local level. I think probably one of the biggest challenges is making the whole forest accessible to everyone. Can you do that? I know The National Forest have talked about rail links and transport links and doing things that do not involve cars, but it is a very challenging area. However, the cycle trails are much loved by a lot of people; I know that.

Mr Beldon: I think the National Forest Company and the tourist information centres work very hard to try to get to people nationally and from within. The new brochure that has just come out is absolutely stunning, as I am sure you have copies. They are very, very good and if they get to the right sources they act as a perfect tool for people to see the bigger elements of what the forest is all about. I think the tourist information centres back had that up with more local information and things if you need it. Their website is very good. The people that I know that use it have not had any quibbles about finding places. The only thing, as Emma just intimated, is public transport to and from some of these places. They are quite far apart and if you want to go to the Arboretum, Conkers and something that is over the other side, to get to all three without any mode of transport of your own is very hard and is something that possibly could be addressed in the future.

Mr Neilson: There are two sides to this. One is the accessibility of the forest to people outside the area, which is nothing to stop anybody coming into the area to enjoy any bits that have public access. We are in an area which is well populated with a potential audience of, as you say, 10 million people, or whatever it is. I think anybody that sets up a business here is going to try and attract those people. Then inevitably there should be areas which are not open to the public because that is the side that generates a quiet wildlife habitat to protect species of birds and flora that can be left alone in peace.

Q29 David Lepper: I just wonder whether any of you can think of a particular project that you know about within The National Forest which might have attracted to the area the kinds of people who would not normally feel that they want to get out and about in the natural environment. Those who do feel strongly about the natural environment are likely to come here anyway. Can any of you think of a project which might have attracted those not normally attracted to an area like this?

Mr Neilson: There are new businesses springing up all the time because it is The National Forest. Perhaps I can give one small example of somebody who lives in the area who rang me up and asked whether he could run llama-trekking days and initially I thought, "What a stupid idea. Why would you want to do that? Nobody is going to do that." Two or three years on he is up and running and having very successful llama trekking. It is the variety of things that you can do in a landscape with trees and access paths and things. On the access thing, The National Forest is in the process of trying to develop greater access to the forest with its cycle tracks, riding tracks, walking tracks, and to make the whole area much more accessible to anybody.

Mr Beldon: My point of view on that one is the diversity of the forest means there probably is never going to be one thing that has been the main dragging-in point. There are so many different things, so many little facets that it all trickles in nicely.

Q30 David Lepper: Anyone else?

Ms Flatt: I think the Wood Fair by the very nature of its name would appear to be an out-doorsy event, but I think a lot of people go who are not particularly out-doorsy and it is just a family thing or a nice day out rather than people thinking we have got to be involved in forestry or woodland. I think that is a very inclusive event and people do travel to go to it. I think it has been busier and busier every year. I do not know what the figures are but I think it is growing in popularity anyway.

Q31 David Lepper: Certainly as someone from the South East I am sorry that I missed the South East Axemen. I am interested in hearing what they do and I hope it is not too dangerous!

Mr Neilson: Here is another example of something that you probably noticed, bottled water.

Q32 David Lepper: Thank you for drawing that to our attention.

Mr Neilson: Taken from The National Forest.

Q33 Chairman: You have all spoken in very positive terms about the forest, what it means to you, what it does for your businesses where appropriate, but I just wondered as people who have observed and who are part of the forest in the various ways you have described, whether you felt that you were being involved in the further processes which will see the forest develop? Do you feel that you are in any way consulted by The National Forest about their current stewardship of the forest and their plans for its development? Richard, what about you?

Mr Beldon: I recently went to one of their networking breakfasts which do just that. They were telling people what they had done, they had planted X million trees in the last ten years, and what their projections are for the next five or ten years, the areas. They talked about a walk that goes all the way through The National Forest from the beginning to the end, one end to the other which is a continuous walk. Again, from my point of view, I can say that they have really tried to tell me and the people that went to that event, obviously for us to spread the word, as to what is going on within the forest from that angle.

Q34 Chairman: Louise, what do you think?

Ms Adams: I think the information is there if you want to find it because obviously throughout The National Forest we have the signage boards that are up saying this little bit of forest has this many trees, or whatever it is, or the bigger maps, but I think the general publicity probably is lacking a little because if you do not go out and find it, if you are Joe Public, I would find it quite difficult to find that information and the new things that they are doing. A lot of the stuff I have found in the forest is stuff that literally I have found. I have gone on a walk and I have seen another display board saying this part of the field is now open for walking and things like that. It is quite nice to explore and to find these places, but if you want to go somewhere then you may not necessarily know where you are going. I think trying to create some more publicity for the general public just to be able to navigate themselves around and find out what is open and what is going on.

Q35 Chairman: As a community in the forest do you feel that the National Forest Company makes an effort to reach out and say, "Look, what do you think should be happening?" You have given some very good examples of ways you could see the services you use being improved, but when it comes to The National Forest's own plans (a) are you aware of their future thinking and plans and (b) if you are, do you have any opportunity to feed back into the Company about what it is going to do in the future?

Ms Adams: I am aware of what they want to do in the future and I know how to feed back, but I do not know whether that is because I am interested and therefore have taken an active role in trying to find that information, because I know that is how I found it. I have not stumbled upon it. I have actively gone out and looked at that information. I think that could be true about most things. If you want to know something you go and find it. Very rarely do you find information about something that you do not want to know about.

Ms Flatt: I am on the Woodland Economy Working Group meeting, when I can, and so is Robin as well, and that is a very inclusive process. It is open to anyone really but it tends to be forestry consultants, landowners and a mix of people where we are asked questions by The National Forest, what we think about certain issues, what should be raised, our ideas on certain things, and we get to directly feed back into what they are doing here, about what their plans are, and things, and that is open to anyone. Again, most of us would be forest businesses or landowners.

Mr Neilson: I am amazed that we all seem to agree on everything. I am longing to find something that I disagree with. I think you are absolutely right. Finding or imparting information is always very difficult to people because you can advertise things as much you like but still people have not a clue what is going on. For those who want it, it is there, and if people want to be involved, they can be involved, and I know what is going on because I am interested and I am part of it and it is all there, but it really depends how interested people are in finding it.

Q36 Chairman: Are you happy with the pace at which the forest is developing, because I think that we see from some of the evidence that we have had (and there are reasons for it) that the pace of development has slowed down? The impression I get is that living within more straitened means and doing what you do but doing it to the highest quality is the ethos that guides the future, but over a period of time, and it has been quite a long time since 1991 that you have got to where you are, do you think it is moving at the right pace? All of you have spoken in very positive terms, but if you want the same dynamic to be there then you have got to continually be moving forward. Do you think the pace of moving forward is right or too slow?

Mr Neilson: It is a good question and I suppose we would all like things to go faster than they are, but I think it is now developing a momentum of its own as the trees actually become significant, because the big question for the last ten years has been "Forest? What forest?" It is there but you cannot see it. It is growing and, as I say, we have got some at home now that are 15 years old and you do not miss those. Those are things you can do. You can get woodfuel out of them and do leisure and recreation things, so it is happening on its own. As for putting more trees in, it is just a matter of persuading more farmers to give up land to put more trees in.

Chairman: Thank you all very much indeed for opening our proceedings. If you were the customers of a company, I think they would be absolutely over the moon with customer feedback, but, in a way, you are customers of the forest and those who have a responsibility for it are going to be next on the witness stand to give us the benefit of their views to our questions, but I am sure that they are very reassured (if they were not before they certainly should be afterwards) by what you have had to say. I cannot recall as far as the Committee is concerned having four witnesses who all literally sing from the same hymn sheet with such a positive view about the subject that we have under inquiry, so thank you all very much indeed for giving of your time and your views. You have given us a very useful start to our inquiry. Thank you very much.

Memorandum submitted by National Forest Company

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Ms Sophie Churchill, Chief Executive, Mr Simon Evans, Chief Officer, and Mr Robin Pellew, Non-Executive Member, the National Forest Company; and Councillor Heather Wheeler, South Derbyshire County Council, gave evidence.

Q37 Chairman: We welcome our next group of witnesses for another 45 minutes of questions. Can I welcome Sophie Churchill, Chief Executive of the National Forest Company. May I take this opportunity, Sophie, of thanking you and your colleagues for laying on a splendid lunch here today and for providing us with a very useful introductory tour. We welcome also Simon Evans, who joined us this morning and gave us a very useful commentary on the forest. He is one of the two Chief Officers of the Company. They are joined by Robin Pellew, who is one of their non-executive members but who I know from conversation just before we started has a particular interest in matters connected with timber. From an organisation involved with but not part of The National Forest we welcome Councillor Heather Wheeler from South Derbyshire County Council. You are very welcome to come and join us. Can I ask Sophie Churchill if you could just for the record tell us over time the forest has been in existence how much has actually been spent in terms of investment, how much has that levered in in terms of non-public monies to assist with the work that you are doing, and can you give us a thumbnail sketch of what you think you have achieved since you started?

Ms Churchill: You will be aware that the bulk of our funding is grant-in-aid directly from Defra which is indeed the reason why we can meet today. In the 14 years from 1995 to 2009, the National Forest Company has received £44.3 million in grant-in-aid. In addition to that, it has received for forest use, not necessarily therefore all going through National Forest Company-led projects, £5.2 million in grants from third parties towards proper forest projects and £1.1 million of donations and sponsorship. Beyond that, we calculate, but it is not possible to do this entirely accurately, around £40 million has been invested in forest-related projects by partner organisations. Beyond that, over £55 million has been secured through coalfield, urban and rural regeneration programmes.

Q38 Chairman: Has anybody attempted to do what I might call a cost:benefit study? You have listed these things which are impressive by virtue of gain but in terms of the wider economic impact if we were looking to say are you good value for money, has somebody done such a study?

Ms Churchill: It is challenging to find a comparator because, going back to the second part of your question, the forest is a hybrid. It is something larger than an area based on an economic regeneration programme, it has bigger economic aspirations than an area of outstanding natural beauty, but it has not got the control or the planning authority of a National Park, so it is an unusual animal, and I think that is why the designation is unique and why The National Forest is looked at as a hybrid. We have done own analysis of sustainable development indicators which are gathered nationally and we have disaggregated them to The National Forest. They showed up to 2006 for example that economic growth was faster in The National Forest area than it was in the surrounding area for their respective counties, for example, and the suggestion there would be that there has been acceleration of recovery from mining and from economic deprivation. We are about to re-do those figures.

Q39 Chairman: Just looking at the figures, doing a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation, you have averaged about £3 million a year over that period of time. How many of you are there who represent the National Forest Company?

Ms Churchill: The Company is small and nearly perfectly formed, we hope. It is certainly not going to get much bigger in the next few years, I suspect. There are 20 of us on the pay roll of whom four are not full-time, so for example our community regeneration and involvement, our participation is led by a part-time member of the team and we have to work in such a way that she galvanises a lot of other activity. We currently have one other member of staff who is with us temporarily and he is recruited to walk the long-distance trail and to check that out, but he is not permanently with us.

Q40 Chairman: He has not finished his walk!

Ms Churchill: He has long legs though. We appointed him on the basis of very long legs!

Q41 Chairman: We are moving into a period where all government departments are going to be looking very critically at their budgets. What has Defra said to you over the current public spending round, which effectively started at the beginning of the last financial year? What prospects do you have up to 2011?

Ms Churchill: We will be included in the disciplines of the Department. We have no reason to think that we have any big change or difficulty in the coming year. We expect to be asked to continue to demonstrate our efficiency, particularly in 2011, 2012, 2013, but there is no indication that we would be in any more difficulty or at any more risk than others. Last year, Chairman, when we consulted on the last five years of our Strategy 2014, we very clearly made the point that although the hectarage that we are going to do each year, 200-250 hectares, is certainly lower than the glory days of 400 to 500 that we have done, per hectare that is getting very expensive and we must get bangs for our bucks with each hectare that we do. It is the point that you made in your summary to the last session that we will have take care in how we do that. I think that argument has been well taken by Defra. There is an expectation that we demonstrate that the structure of the forest that we are creating is maximising the policy needs of the Department - climate change, resilience and landscape change.

Q42 Chairman: In terms of the goals that you agree with Defra, are there any areas where you are struggling to meet what you have told them you are trying to do?

Ms Churchill: I would say the area for continuing work and challenge is one that I do not think anybody has cracked in the country, and that is to - and I have experts to my left here - achieve landscape scale change in a way that connects up the landscape you have already got in the most resilient way for climate change, which might not be trees everywhere, it could be scrubby grassland. It could be going to landowners more directly than we have done up till now and saying, "Look at our map. Look at what we can offer you. If you play with us this would make an enormous difference to completing the job." We are talking about intelligent landscape change, connectivity. We have some very clever software to do it, but that is a task of conversion into implementation, I would say.

Q43 Chairman: Let me push you a bit further on this because there are discussions and you can pick a number as to what there may be by way of constraint on departmental budgets. We did Defra's Annual Report. They have a target of saving in the current period about £375 million. They have done about £325 million but they have got to find the difference. Everything that they are going to do could well be squeezed. Have you made any contingency plans if you do get squeezed for a ten to 15 per cent budget cut?

Ms Churchill: We are clearly looking actively at how that could be accommodated. What we would want to achieve out of that would be not losing masses of capacity to continue to physically create the forest. Having said that, a hectare under our Changing Landscapes scheme at the moment might cost £12,000. If our target is 250 hectares a year, you can see there is a sum there whereby you could lose some hectares, and on a budget of £3.5 million you could begin to make some savings there, but the critical thing would be do we retain the staff capacity, the intelligence and the marketing and communication capacity, on which the previous panel has touched, so that the momentum can keep going.

Q44 Chairman: Robin, can I ask you as a non-executive member of the board, somebody tasked with challenging and keeping an eye on what the executive members are doing, are you satisfied that proper plans are in place if times do get difficult in the way that we have just been discussing?

Mr Pellew: Yes, there are plans in place at the moment to try and reduce reliance upon the grant-in-aid by actually becoming financially more self-supporting. These are now beginning to mature. If you look at the Annual Report for 2008-09, you will see that the amount of money coming in through donations and sponsorship has doubled. We have appointed now a team of people with a head of development specifically to explore how we can capitalise upon the goodwill there is out there in the community and the business opportunities and the corporate sponsorship opportunities, opportunities for donations, legacies and so on, in order to be able to build up a greater degree of financial self-sufficiency. An element of the dynamics of this is that creating the woodland itself is expensive, but forestry is an extremely long-term business, and if there is one major strategic priority that certainly exercises the non-executives it is how do we maintain the momentum over the very long term. We have a target of one-third of woodland creation and we will achieve that at the current rate of striking in the next 20 to 30 years. Then we have the management and maintenance in perpetuity of The National Forest. How is that to be funded? We cannot rely on government and grant-in-aid for that sort of area.

Q45 Chairman: Can I ask a point of information. You have an ability to hold and own a quantity of land, some 300 hectares of land. Are you allowed to use that land only for the purposes of planting forestry and other directly associated activities or is the opportunity there for you to consider some element of property development or other economic use for the land, bearing in mind the mixed nature of activity within the forest boundaries?

Ms Churchill: I think that could be a discussion to be had for the future.

Q46 Chairman: Can you answer my question specifically. Are you empowered to be able to use that land for other than forestry?

Ms Churchill: No.

Q47 Chairman: But it is something that you might think about?

Ms Churchill: Particularly after the Read Report in terms of making best use of private sector investment. Where, for example, in the totality of a piece of land there was a very big carbon investment being made, we might want to sell on part of the land in order to raise enough capital to do something which is evidently going to assist with the total carbon sum, for example, or, as Robin said, help The National Forest in perpetuity. I think there is certainly a need in the future to think more flexibly about how we milk the assets we put in.

Q48 Lynne Jones: In their memorandum the Woodland Trust raised the issue of carbon financing and, obviously, if you are creating woodlands you are offsetting CO₂. It is perhaps beyond your powers to do this but is this a way in which we could have forests financed in perpetuity and how should we go about doing that? What recommendations would you think we should be making in terms of allowing that to happen?

Ms Churchill: One pinch point before that is simple land availability. We have found it harder to plant our own schemes of late partly because land is not available. One recommendation would be a little more flexibility about holding a land bank perhaps of a greater number of hectares and for more flexible purposes because one would then be ready to respond to private sector and other interests around the carbon investment that they could make, so you have land ready in order to lease it or to co-develop it with the private sector because of the carbon benefit they are going to get. The land bank is one thing. The other thing, clearly, is whether UK forestry will be counted formally as part of carbon offsetting. That is edging towards some kind of position post-Copenhagen but it did not get as far as we would need it to get to. Certainly the Read Report would not just be talking about corporates. There are also charities and other NGOs and we have a track record of working with the Wildlife Trust and the Woodland Trust, so there are other bodies that we know how to work with where that carbon argument could be implemented more strongly than it is now, but that does depend on a wider legislative framework.

Mr Pellew: You say what are the things which the Committee could possibly do to assist us on this. We are very sharp and I am very impressed at the way in which the Company works with business to explore opportunities for carbon sequestration and to tick the carbon box for reduced carbon emissions and indeed for their corporate social responsibility budgets. What limits it is the fact that in the UK, tree-planting is not formally accredited as a carbon offset system under the Clean Development Mechanism and Kyoto so on whereas if you plant your trees in Guatemala or Indonesia, it is. If there is anything which we would benefit from at the parliamentary level it is how can we encourage a mechanism whereby temporary forests and tree-planting which has a significant carbon sequestration benefit can actually be formally accredited, which would give us much more leverage when working with companies to actually invest in creating The National Forest.

Mr Evans: There are also other effective mechanisms that other people run like the Milton Keynes Park Trust. They were endowed with development assets from which they actually maintain an income to help maintain the green space within the new town in perpetuity, so there are different models of approach that could be applied here to help the forest in the future in different guises.

Q49 Chairman: Councillor Wheeler, can I turn to you. We heard in our tour this morning of the very diverse nature of the forest. We also heard of the important role which local authorities played in working with the Forest Company to help them achieve their objectives, particularly in the context of appropriate development within the forest. What do you think the local authorities within the forest have gained over time with the creation of The National Forest?

Councillor Wheeler: As you have been driving around, you have seen the changing nature. This used to be an old mining area. When I first got involved in this back in 1995 with the Single Regeneration Budget we changed Swadlincote woodlands, that area particularly, and we did not get that SRB budget because of jobs. It was very, very unusual. We actually got it on an environmental basis for cleaning up the area and greening the area. Out of that new forest we raised £27 million for every £1 million of public money. It was absolutely huge. It was probably the best price per price private to public money investment there has been in the country. It has been a huge success. We built on what happened in Swad and we have taken it and around here you have seen the new buildings that are coming up down there. We have some industrial work units there and they are going to be greenest industrial work units that you will ever find. That has been the ethos that we have done. I have looked on this, once we have kicked in on the environmental side, as looking at the regeneration and creating jobs, but jobs that will be very sustainable for the future.

Q50 Chairman: I am just interested when you talk to your colleagues in the Local Government Association in these glowing terms do other people say, "Can we have one of those?"

Councillor Wheeler: I just say to them, "You can't; we are unique"! It is a most interesting thing. We are incredibly proud in South Derbyshire. We toyed with the idea of whether we should change the name of the Council to The National Forest Council. The difficulty for us of course is that it does go over three or four other places.

Q51 Chairman: You would not mind taking them over as well, would you?

Councillor Wheeler: I could not possibly comment. This is on the record, is it not, what a shame!

Q52 Lynne Jones: There is a plan for another new forest in the Hertfordshire area, is there not?

Councillor Wheeler: Yes, but do you not think it is going be a bit more chi-chi? We are more robust up here!

Q53 Chairman: I think that raises an interesting question and perhaps I can put it to Sophie Churchill. A cynic might say why on earth do you need to have a National Forest Company to deliver a forest. Why can we not just get partners together, enlightened landowners, local authorities, why do we have to have a special company to do it? Put bluntly, could it not have happened without you?

Ms Churchill: Perhaps it could have done and partnerships are often very successful, but they are successful where you have very strong leadership, and I think because of the boundaries being drawn around landscape and land use they naturally fell across local authority boundaries, and therefore having one small and non-bureaucratic driver which was trusted equally by those authorities, and did not find fear or favour with any of them, was definitely not a bloated regeneration partnership in the traditional sense, and was clearly accountable elsewhere. We feel our accountability very strongly in two directions. Firstly, absolutely locally; if it is not playing locally, it is not playing. Then also back to Defra but in the middle also our organisation partners. I think the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The Company has not expanded. It has not had problems in terms of accountability or bureaucracy and I think it is going to drive the thing forward.

Mr Evans: The Company has an unusual basis. It cuts across the social, environmental and economic aspects of it. We are not, in one sense, tied to any particular sector but actually we are one organisation that can pull all those sectors together at the hub of things. It helps to have a single focus so that people can actually rally around the Company and regardless of what hat they wear they know, because of the multi-purpose objectives of the forest, there is an aspect of it that suits them.

Q54 Chairman: Councillor, can I say I sense that you have a very good relationship with the Company but in terms of the time that your Council has been dealing with the Company, not everybody agrees with everybody on local authorities about everything, so if somebody had said, "Blimey, I don't really like those people at The National Forest, couldn't we have the Forestry Commission doing that?" have you ever had a conversation where somebody has been openly critical of the National Forest Company and suggested another partner ought to be running the show?

Councillor Wheeler: In all honesty, we work terribly closely with the Forestry Commission as well as the National Forest Company, plus the excellent family that run this place for us as a business. We have expanded so much now with the Derbyshire Economic Partnership as well. We have not had a row. I think the identity and people being so close to it is important. We mentioned about The National Forest water here. Dave Smith, who owns and runs that, is sitting at the back of the hall. It is a very close family-run thing. One of the things that has grown up so well, once we have hit the environmental impacts so hard, we have cleaned up the area and we have greened up the area, now we are looking at millions and millions of pounds of tourist money. South Derbyshire is a very funny place. Out of our local economic spend and income 27 per cent is manufacturing but 27 per cent is tourism. I think that is unique and it works because we work as friends.

Q55 Chairman: Can I just ask you about objectives, Sophie, in terms of the forest. Over time each year you will obviously set your annual objective and your objectives over each one of the three years of public expenditure programmes. Can you put your hand on heart and say we have achieved what we have set out to do or have there been any areas where you have not performed according to plan?

Ms Churchill: In the last couple of years I think non-executives and ourselves would all have said that we would have liked to have hit a higher level within our targets for pure forest creation. We will this year I think. We confidently expect to hit our target. We had one year where we were in transition between the former Tender scheme which, frankly, got outdated and needed to be refreshed, and we had one year in negotiation to set up the Changing Landscapes scheme, and that created a hiatus in the forest creation figures. Other than that, my view would be that it is a question of doing thing betters and better and more deeply and more widely. I would echo what Louise Adams said in the panel earlier that we must keep making sure that as many residents in The National Forest know the game plan and know where we are heading. We are a small company. We are not funded to do big marketing and publicity campaigns. We have agreed this year to try to put something through the door step of each resident. That will cost us in cash terms £20,000, ten pence per resident, but a lot of staff time. That is to give you an example of where there are some targets we would really like to up and deliver, but it is costly for us.

Q56 Chairman: I suppose there are two bodies in this country that have a high profile as far as forestry is concerned. One is the Forestry Commission and the other is you. You have a lot of notable achievements to put before people. Are you consulted by others who want to learn from your model? In terms of good practice, in terms of the management and development of forestry, how do you make your lessons learnt available to others? Do you think you provide a position of leadership which others respond to in this area?

Mr Evans: I think increasingly through best practice on the ground and dissemination of that through a number of levels really. We have good contacts with national organisations at a national policy level, so there is a common approach in strategic thinking between the forest and for example the Forestry Commission in terms of objectives. We do a lot of work more locally with specialist working groups. We have a number of these in the forest related to access, recreation, nature conservation, the woodland economy, planning, tourism and community activity. There is a spider's web of activity behind each of those themes for a network of organisations to actually tell us things and for us to tell them things as well in terms of sharing experience. We do a lot of work on the research front as well. This falls into a number of different categories. We are a national leader for example in terms of the European Landscape Convention. Our expertise there has helped shape that nationally through Natural England's work. Through our sustainable development work with Defra, the little booklet of indicators that Sophie has mentioned previously, this was done as an exemplar for Defra to be able to share with its wider family and smaller organisations as to how they could record and promote sustainable development. We do a lot of work with forest research for example and social forestry research, climate change and tree provenance. There are various ways of sharing experience from a strategic national level right to the local with organisations but also through the actual work we do in the monitoring and recording of that and research-related activity.

Q57 Dr Strang: You made reference to the Forestry Commission Read Report which was obviously a very interesting document which makes a case for an expansion of forestry. It was recommending that we should increase forestry cover by 23,000 hectares a year and if that can be achieved, then a four per cent increase in forestry cover in 40 years would make an additional ten per cent contribution to reducing levels of carbon emissions. Against that background, do you not feel - or perhaps you are doing this - that is the cue for you and others in positions like yours to be taking advantage of that argument and making the case for more support and more of what you do?

Ms Churchill: We would be very proud even if we carried on at the rate we are doing now that we would be contributing a hundredth of that extra hectarage a year, which is a contribution. It is also encouraging that the Read Report, whilst talking about coniferous planting, fast-growing conifers - and if you are just planting for carbon that is what you would do - says that, nevertheless, a mix of broad-leaved trees will make a significant contribution as well. We have no anxiety that to adopt that approach means radically changing the kind of landscape change that we are trying to achieve, so that is encouraging. It is a rallying cry but I do come back to what Lynne was suggesting that it is about finding new mechanisms by which we can release land, we can find the incentives for the private sector, and that goes back to what Robin says about the carbon offsetting being legitimate in the UK. From our point of view, it is also true that we must not collapse The National Forest into a carbon abatement project. It has always been part of its rationale but we have to hold on to that balanced, integrated strategy which we have talked about this afternoon. We are certainly ready and willing and if there is a national task group that really starts to unpack the "how" question, which was not addressed in the Read Report, we would want to be leading on that.

Mr Pellew: The Read Report makes a very strong case for getting more trees in the ground, as it were, but The National Forest is so much more than just planting trees. In the context of climate change the real model which The National Forest provides is how can you take a landscape which has been pretty bashed and battered by extractive industries and all the rest of it (because it is not a vibrant, healthy landscape) and make it much more resilient to the impact of climate change? Tree planting therefore is not just a question of getting trees in the ground. It is being much more strategic in your thinking about where to put them, not just in terms of landscape and biodiversity enhancement but in terms of how can you create the corridors, the connectivity, the wildlife migration routes so that the landscape itself is much more adapted to be able to accept and tolerate the impact of climate change. That is what we are doing now. We have the very sophisticated geographic information system tools which enable us to highlight where would we get the best bang for our bucks for putting trees in in terms of producing a more resilient landscape. If we can start being more strategic in our thinking and planning about where to put the trees, then I think the social benefit to the country, both in terms of the heart of England having greater resilience and the model it provides for elsewhere, is where the prime value will lie.

Q58 Dr Strang: In relation to 2008-09,the Company said that forestry creation was the "single most challenging aspect" of your work. Would you like to say a little more about that? What are these issues that make it such a challenge?

Ms Churchill: There is plenty more land to go at in The National Forest. We have not run out of land that we could plant on, not by any means, and Robin Neilson alluded to that in the earlier panel. Of course, as time goes on, there are more sites, particularly large sites, that simply we have got our hands on and we have planted, for example the big mining sites. There are some sites which we know will come forward in time, as we saw this morning when we looked over that landfill site, but they are not there yet. Then in terms of agriculture - and again this has been alluded to - if people feel buoyant about arable and what they are doing, that is a very good thing. We have no compulsory powers and if people want to carry on planting and using their farms in the traditional way, then that is what they will do, and we will only get perhaps marginal pieces of land within the farms. We also had internal issues with transition from one scheme to a newer one and this always takes time to bed down and so on. This year we have introduced a new smaller scale woodland scheme called Freewoods and that has proved very popular. The Changing Landscapes scheme is bedding down and land acquisition waxes and wanes. We cannot control that, we cannot dominate the market, but sometimes suddenly you have a 60-hectare possibility and on a target of 250 hectares things can shift quickly. There is still lots to play for but it has just felt pretty tight the last couple of years or so.

Mr Evans: One thing I would add to that, with recession development and development-related landscaping and green infrastructure, obviously the slow-down with that means we are getting less of a drip feed with that annually as well, but because that is writ large in terms of future growth, we do see great potential with that into the future in terms of hectares and getting it right.

Councillor Wheeler: To add a bit from the Council point of view, we are very robust where there are 106 agreements. If you are in The National Forest and if it fits the criteria then Sophie is knocking on the door because we are making that part of the planning permission. It is as simple as that.

Mr Pellew: I think it was unfortunate that we launched the Changing Landscapes scheme, the successor to the Tender scheme, at a time when wheat prices hit £140 a tonne and every farmer, instead of thinking about trees, was ploughing up and sewing even the most marginal parts of his farm. With margins now tighter, with the Changing Landscapes scheme now bedding in, with increased promotion of it, primarily by word of mouth by those who have actually experienced it, I think we will see a substantial increase in the area coming forward for planting through the grant scheme. The board would be pretty optimistic about that in the future. There has been a hiatus where it was very difficult to acquire land because of the high prices and landowners were reluctant to plant trees because of high agricultural commodity prices where our existing grant-in-aid scheme was terminated, and that hiatus was reflected in the fall of forest creation, but I would anticipate that we are going to see it pulling away again to a stable level of somewhere around 200-250 hectares per annum. We could do a lot more than that if we were to chase land prices but we do not want to do that. We have to be quite careful in the market that we are not seen to be regarded as being an easy play in order to buoy up prices at auction or privately, so we are very rigorous in the way in which we control our bid prices and how we value. The increasing emphasis will be on grant-in-aid rather than land acquisition.

Q59 Chairman: Can we just probe and pick up on a point that Gavin touched on which is the Changing Landscapes grant scheme which you have at the moment. Give me an idiot's guide to it. I have 20 hectares of land. I want to convert it into forest. I knock on the door. What is the offer?

Mr Pellew: Why do you want to do it?

Q60 Chairman: Because I have read your wonderful publicity. I read the evidence in Select Committee and was bowled over by the enthusiasm and felt so moved that I wanted to join in.

Mr Pellew: Quite seriously, whether your motivation for wanting to do it coincides with good value for money for the public purse is one of the first things which would be considered. We have to have a degree of reassurance that we are spending public money on a planting scheme which benefits the private owner, because they have retained ownership, in a way that does reflect good value for money.

Q61 Chairman: That is what I was trying to get at because I am a little confused. Changing Landscapes means funding something different to what you are using the land for at the moment. I wanted to explore in more detail, having changed the landscape, what happens then because you were talking about the mind-set of landowners against the background of extremely high prices for wheat. Given that the use of forestry or land for forestry purposes is as, you quite rightly canvass, a long-term activity, the long-term projections are first of all that we are going to have to produce more food and, if that is the case, the pressure on the world's food systems are such that the margin for error becomes narrower and therefore you could see a series of price spikes in the future, and it depends on how you gamble in terms of the return on your piece of land as to what you are actually going to do with it. What I am not clear about is what you get if you do have a scheme which passes the test of beneficial public use, et cetera, once you have changed it and you have established your forest, what happens then? Just take me from the beginning. I have got the tick in the box. I have passed the Pellew test. I am in through the door. I am okay.

Ms Churchill: You would only have passed the Pellew test if Mr Pellew had actually looked at your scheme at a board meeting. The schemes are actually approved by directors of the Company and they are approved against criteria which directors have agreed, and those would include scoring against contribution to landscape, climate change, public access, and so on. In principle, it is competitive because we have a finite amount of money. One year, praise be, we might have 15 schemes and we cannot fund them all and there is a points system. That is transparent. The costs are against standard costs which also apply with the Forestry Commission and their planting. So it is straightforward: yes/no. At that point if all goes ahead and we like the scheme, a contract is entered into between the National Forest Company and that landowner. That contract obliges them to implement that scheme and look after it for a ten-year period with the possibility of extensions thereafter for management and so on. At that point there is no argument. If you have thought about it hard and you produce a scheme which is acceptable and contracts are signed, then that is the business of your land for that time.

Q62 Chairman: So the funding that is provided is to fund the scheme of initialling the forest development and subsequent maintenance for a ten-year period?

Ms Churchill: Yes, and there is a payment on completion of that initial works of 80 per cent of the total amount. There is a further payment of 20 per cent after five years. If it had been on agricultural land, there is an element of income foregone which is also paid depending on the species and so on. Then there is an inspection regime which is led by members of the Company.

Mr Evans: It is fair to say that the design of schemes can be really flexible as well because they only have to have at least 50 per cent trees. Within that 50 per cent you can have open ground as well. If you have a ten-hectare site you could do as little as three hectares of planting. Alternatively, if the landowner wants to do more they can do more. Within the open space element it means that you can design something that is very flexible to suit your own circumstances and landscape business, so that might include recreational features, which might be paid for for example by their users. It could include management of existing woodland. It is not blunt in terms of it is just a scheme for planting trees. It is very flexible in terms of its design to suit the circumstances of a landowner.

Mr Pellew: This morning I was looking at sites which either have been approved or are about to be approved or they are considered sufficient for the Landscape scheme, and I was impressed in all of them by the sensitivity with which the landowner or the agent had actually determined where all the trees were going to go and where there was going to be agriculture. The one particular scheme which immediately comes to mind is along a stream, where the low-lying wetland which has standing water on it is going to go into the scheme and the lower mid slopes up to the top is going to remain in agriculture. They are going to braise the stream itself and they are going to put in ponds and scrapes to produce wetland. It will produce an extremely nice wet woodland with a bit of parkland along the edge and hedges and so on. You feel that the motivation for the farmer doing this is that this is a bit of unproductive land which he can diversify and put into this form of use which will make it visually more attractive and so on, but there is a big public benefit out of this. It is creating very good habitat for nature conservation and wetland and so on and it is actually enhancing the landscape, and I feel quite comfortable, as a non-executive director, recommending that that sort of scheme goes ahead. There is a potential competition between woodland and arable agricultural land in those circumstances for the farmer or the landowner who does not want to lose his best land but has a bit of poor quality land which is non-productive which he can put to public benefit.

Q63 Chairman: This new scheme has been going for a year now. Did you fully spend the budget last year?

Ms Churchill: We have a global budget for forest creation which would include a mixture of the Changing Landscapes scheme and land acquisition small-scale schemes, and in the last year we slightly underspent, but I will have to get back to you with the precise figure. I do not have that now.

Q64 Chairman: When say you slightly underspent was that on the global total?

Ms Churchill: Yes, the global total for forest creation purposes.

Q65 Chairman: Is the situation that you have spent everything and there is a queue of people at the door or is the situation that you spent because the market, if you like, was in balance between what you were trying to achieve and what was offered? In other words, is the scheme attractive enough to keep the flow of land coming up for approval sufficient to enable you to achieve your objectives, because you said earlier that you were moving at a slower pace, and I wanted just to be clear whether that slower pace was because the land flow had slowed down, and one might conjecture that the scheme is not quite as generous as it should be, or was it, as Robin Pellew was just indicating, a reflection of the changed agricultural circumstances? Give me a feel for the relationship between the money available and the flow of land to use it.

Ms Churchill: I would say in the last couple of years the flow of land has been a greater constraint than the availability of money to fund potential Changing Landscapes schemes. However, I would also say that at £12,000 a hectare, if you bear in mind that our total grant-in-aid is £3.6 million and that does everything including our staff costs, and our staff costs are not running costs as such, they are also people actually delivering tourism in the forest, so they are project people, but if you conjecture £12,000 a hectare, trying to do 250 hectares a year and a total grant-in-aid budget of £3.6 million, we are in a situation of potential volatility about whether we have enough to spend or too much or too little depending on land availability.

Q66 Chairman: Why did you change from the Tender scheme? Was the Tender scheme judged not to be giving good value for money?

Mr Pellew: The Tender scheme fell out with the European Union, let us put it that way. It was deemed as being inappropriate for us to continue with and we were requested to produce an alternative, which is what we have done.

Q67 Chairman: Why did it fall out with the European Union? What did it think it was, a state aid or something?

Mr Pellew: This could get quite complicated.

Q68 Chairman: You have got 30 seconds! I will tell you what, drop us a note on that because I do not think the detailed guts of it are central. I was just anxious to find out whether it is an economically driven change or whether there was another motive behind it, and I think you have made it clear there was another motive behind it.

Mr Pellew: It was due to competition rules and so on. I will try to answer the previous question about the balance between available funding and land supply. To a certain extent, it is volatile because the situation changes according to the demand for the grants from the private landowners. If the private landowners do not want to put trees in because they are doing very nicely out of existing agriculture because commodity prices are high, then obviously there is less coming forward and the land then becomes the limiting factor. Assuming that agricultural prices remain fairly stable, if they were to in the future at the current level, then I think that the Changing Landscapes scheme has the opportunity to expand quite significantly to the extent that our available finances to support all the good schemes coming forward will become limited. That will become the constriction.

Ms Churchill: If I may add another source of funding in the future, which relates to our tour this morning, and which Simon is very much involved in, and that is green infrastructure, ie putting in compensatory, good-quality green links and open spaces because there is growth in South Derbyshire or wherever else. That will not just be a nice added aspect of what The National Forest does. That could become a central plank of how we complete the forest, particularly if we get it right and we do those connections in those villages in the right way. There could be new sources of funding that follow that.

Chairman: Time is getting short so I am going to ask if you would drop me a note just to compare your structure of grant funding with that of the National Woodland Creation grant so we have a clear distinction because under some circumstances people in the forest area might look at that compared with yours. I would like to ask Lynne if she could ask some of her questions please in the next five minutes.

Q69 Lynne Jones: I know, Sophie, you said earlier that the scheme must not collapse into a carbon abatement project and you made some very important points about resilience which means I can skip some of my questions. Could I just say that the Forestry Commission published their report calling for an additional 23,000 hectares of land to be planted annually to offset carbon emissions but the Government's Low Carbon Transition Plan is talking about 10,000 hectares a year. There is somewhat of a difference there. Would you care to comment on whether it is realistic to have such targets and, if we do, which is the one that you think we should be going for, the Forestry Commission's or the Government's?

Mr Pellew: You are going to pass this one to me, are you! I am not sure if I am in a position to be able to comment on whether a target of 10,000 or 20,000 or 30,000 or whatever is the correct amount in terms of the carbon sequestration and the contribution towards balancing the UK's carbon output. What I would say is that it is very easy just to dream up a figure without actually putting in place the mechanism and indeed the money to be able to deliver it. The bulk of UK land is basically privately owned, and so if you are going to be looking for rates of forest creation at that level there has got to be sufficient incentive provided for the landowners to actually engage meaningfully in that process. To a certain extent, I think that the scheme that we run, the grant-in-aid that we run, although at a much smaller scale, could act as a model to show what those incentives might be, and if you were to roll out a similar type of scheme like we are doing in The National Forest at the UK national level to all landowners, I can see that that might contribute considerably towards your total.

Q70 Lynne Jones: If your rate of 250 hectares a year were scaled up nationally, what would that be equivalent to?

Mr Pellew: We are 200 square miles. I am not quite sure what the land surface area of the United Kingdom is but we are probably about a hundredth of the UK and we are contributing about a hundredth of the target.

Q71 Lynne Jones: That is the Forestry Commission target?

Mr Pellew: Yes.

Q72 Lynne Jones: You said about being a model. There is this proposal in Hertfordshire for a new forest. Have you been involved in that?

Ms Churchill: I believe that is the Woodland Trust's new large forest around St Albans, and that would certainly be, according to their information, the single biggest new continuous block of woodland, so it is a block of woodland.

Q73 Lynne Jones: It is a completely different model then? They have a good site?

Ms Churchill: It is a different kind of thing really, yes.

Q74 Lynne Jones: In terms of when you are measuring your success in conserving the environment, what are your indicators? How do you measure your success?

Mr Evans: We have a range of those. To kick off with we have our Forest Strategy which is government-approved and that is a ten-year strategy. We were halfway through that in the previous year and we have a new delivery plan, so there is a measurement against that. We have a Biodiversity Action Plan, which is put together with conservation partners, so there is annual monitoring against targets for that specifically for biodiversity. We have sustainable development indicators which look at land-based things such as woodland cover, public benefits such as amounts of public access, proximity of access to where people live, and economic indicators as part of that. There is a range of mechanisms like that against which we report. We have our own geographic information system so spatially that helps us to produce our beautiful maps of what is happening where. That is backed up by information behind that in terms of who has done what, so the figures that we quote are always conservative figures and we can hold our hand up and say, "Come and have a look; this is how it was calculated this year. "

Q75 Lynne Jones: I know you covered it during our visit this morning but can you explain how you decide what habitats to develop where and whether your move to more habitat management is changing your allocation of resources?

Mr Evans: First of all, the starting point is we do not plant where there is existing good habitat, full stop. There is a consultation process that is in place with local authorities and conservation organisations so those sorts of schemes do not pass muster. Secondly, there is a variety of landscape in habitat terms. Just in broad terms, heathy-type character in Charnwood, wetlands in the Trent Valley and neutral grasslands in Needwood. If a landowner is designing a Changing Landscape scheme in a wildlife habitat we would expect them to pick up the relevant habitats in their area for creative activity, so it is not just anything anywhere; it is tailored to suit the place. That is very important to us as well.

Q76 Lynne Jones: Could I ask Councillor Wheeler how effectively is the environmental work of your local authority, or what you know of other local authorities, integrated into the work of The National Forest?

Councillor Wheeler: Very closely integrated. Zoe Sewter, our Open Spaces Officer, is here today. We work very closely with Sophie. We are finally going to get after 20 years a new golf course that is on old mining land, and one of the most important things about it has been working out where the trees are going to go. The whole point is it all fits together because you get the best use out of the land by joining in partnership with the National Forest Company, making sure that you get really good use of land, best benefit to the people, and having Sophie and her team's solid background of environmental principles behind us, it has just been a joy to work with.

Q77 Chairman: I want to pick up on the chicken and the egg because local authorities are approached by people who want to develop land, and the Forest Company, if you like, waits for people to come to the door and say, "We have some land that we want to develop." How do you bring things together so that the regeneration aspirations within the Council's remit to influence - you might say, "We would like to do something there," - link in with what The National Forest objectives are?

Councillor Wheeler: Let me start and then Sophie finish off because one of the things I have been finding so frustrating is that, as you probably appreciate, The National Forest is not all of South Derbyshire. I would much prefer it if it was but Sophie keeps saying to me, "Let me do what I have got first and then we can talk about it," but that is the point, people are knocking on the door because people want to live here because it is so beautiful. That is the absolute difference. The change since 1995 is just incredible.

Mr Evans: In terms of planning link-up, our strategy is commented on by the local authorities, so they are giving their comments on what we are putting out and are feeling comfortable with that. We make comments on the local development framework to weave forest policies in. When developers want to do something they will often come to our door and say, "Local authority X has suggested we talk to you. We want to do X amount of green infrastructure. What does that mean? Tell me what you what?" We have those discussions with developers and we are in direct contact with the local authorities there to try and achieve the same objective.

Q78 Lynne Jones: We talked about finance and land constraints but what about skills? Are there skills constraints and what are you doing about it? What should be done?

Ms Churchill: In term of forestry and land-based skills, there are training and development opportunities through The National Forest. We have a new course this year led by the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers which is taking people who are out of the labour force who want to get land-based skills. The National Forest Company is very pleased to support that financially to make that happen, but as one of the players. Then we addressed this morning hedge-laying which came up earlier and so on. Where I might say we have some big challenge, for all of us, is the green master-planning and then implementing it across different districts and different areas. We have very, very committed local authorities but none of them are big. You really need one excellent and visionary leader, one excellent and visionary head of planning and development and environment and you need a very dynamic person, an urban designer and/or a planner. That is uneven across the forest. We have a job to do to keep our skills up to speed, because things are changing, and to have an evenness of aspiration and skills in this area of taking growth and not jeopardising The National Forest that we have put in. I would say that is a big area.

Mr Pellew: Very briefly two points as a non-executive director. The first one, which is slightly critical, is we have a very good story to tell here. It is a great success. I think there is a huge amount that has been achieved. As a non-executive director, I genuinely find it inspirational and I cannot think of many NDPBs in which I have been involved where I would actually use the word "inspirational". The criticism I would make is that we need to do more to promote the model elsewhere. There are lots of places I can see where you have got deprived populations, blighted landscapes, where the model which has been developed here would be applicable, in the Midlands, the North of England, Scotland, the Welsh Valleys and so on. I think that more could be done both by the Company and by the Government in order to promote the experience here and to transplant it elsewhere. That is one point. The second point, which has been touched upon, is that the forest has now begun to develop a sense of its own identity. If you meet people going to plant a tree and you say to them, "Where do you live?" they are just as likely to say, "I live in The National Forest," as they are to say, "I live in South Derbyshire." They say that with a real pride because it has achieved this sense of geographical identity and sense of place. It is manifest in the branding with lots of smaller SMEs now using the name. Estate agents are using it as a "detached bungalow in The National Forest" to sell the thing. This is beginning to build a momentum. Companies now want to move in here because it is easier for them to recruit employees because they are in The National Forest. It feeds upon itself and this is how the thing is now beginning to expand in terms of the social and economic benefits coming in, because it has gone past critical mass, maintained momentum and this sense of identity as a place which is terribly important. It is nebulous but it is fundamental to the success. The trans-location of the experience here has to identify what are the ingredients of creating that sense of place so that you could do the same elsewhere. If that could be done it is a very precious commodity.

Chairman: Robin, I think that is an elegant summary of what we have discussed with the panel. I would like to thank you all very much indeed for your evidence. I have let the questioning go on a little more because we were exploring some very important areas. I am conscious that I did say that if there were any members of the audience who would like to make a personal contribution there would be time at the end for that to be done.

Witnesses: Councillor Michael Stanton, Ms Debbie Chesterman, Ms Monica Hudson, Ms Laura Parry and Ms Clare O'Reilley , gave evidence.

Q79 Chairman: You have all sat very patiently and very politely. If there is anything that anybody did want to say, if you would be kind enough to identify yourself for the record and let us have your views in a crisp manner.

Councillor Stanton: My name is Michael Stanton. I am afraid I have rather a gripe. I have 170 acres of forest. Most of it is ten years old, a little bit more is 11 years old. Being of a certain age I feel I ought to get my affairs into line before I shuffle off this mortal coil, which I am trying to do at the moment, but my legal and accountancy adviser tells me that I do not have any inheritance tax relief on my forest element. That troubles me a certain amount because basically if I have not neither has anybody else. That will mean that the value of the forest will virtually go to nothing. The situation at the moment is I have a few years left and I could fell my forest and turn it back into agriculture. If you put the value of land at about £6,000 an acre, for £6,000 on one particular acre I could turn it back into agriculture and then my farming enterprise can be relieved for the next generation. I am rather worried about the situation and I wonder if you have a comment or could take that into consideration.

Q80 Chairman: The last thing that any member of the Select Committee should do is to offer expert advice on anything, particularly tax matters! However much we might think we know about it, it is always a dangerous area. I think you raise a very interesting and important point and three things can happen as a result of your raising it. Firstly, it is on the record. Secondly, we will produce a short report with some appropriate comments, and also, because you have raised the question, we can ask the question of the relevant government department what is the answer, and if you care to make certain that our staff have your address as well as your name then we can make certain that you get a response from HM Government to the point you have made because I think it is a very interesting and important point, and thank you for making it.

Councillor Stanton: Thank you very much.

Q81 Chairman: Is there anybody else in the audience who would like to make a comment?

Ms Chesterman: I am Debbie Chesterman. I am the centre manager here. Just going back to the first session, I think it was a question that David asked about any projects that increased accessibility in terms of encouraging groups into the forest that you would not normally expect to see. I am also the manager of a project called Get Active in the Forest which basically does exactly what it says on the tin. It is funded by the National Forest Company as well as South Derbyshire District Council and the primary care trust. We promote physical activity opportunities within the forest. We also work with a lot of different groups, including BME groups, so for example we had a group of Asian men walking this morning. We had a sculpture trail developed on the site working with the Afro-Caribbean community and also the Chinese community. We also work with adults with learning difficulties who come to the centre, Access help in the gardens and they have created a mosaic. Also adults with mental health problems and young people with mental health problems. The opportunity that the forest has given us has created centres such as here where we can use what we have got outside to attract people in that maybe, as you say, would not normally access this type of area.

Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. Perhaps you should have asked, David, what they could do for MPs!

David Lepper: Particularly retiring MPs!

Q82 Chairman: Your name is?

Ms Hudson: Monica Hudson and I am a local volunteer. I am going to do a very unusual thing and tell you my age: I am nearly 70. My age group resented the forest when it first was mooted to come here until the historians like myself got together and we mapped out the area and we have used heritage and the forest money to say what was here and now the forest could cover it. Once we had got these heritage groups together we were then quite for the forest because our children and our grandchildren will have some more work. Thank you very much. And please keep it local. The forest group team know that we are all different people in the forest. My husband was a miner and spent 50 years where Conkers is now. So please keep it local.

Q83 Chairman: Thank you very much for your contribution. Is there anybody from this side of the hall? If we could have the microphone at the front.

Ms Parry: My name is Laura Parry and I am from the Woodland Trust. I know we have mentioned it a couple of times but I really wanted to re-emphasise, we use the term "inspirational" for The National Forest and I think that is something we really do value. We are saying we need to do more of this elsewhere. We need to know how we can do it and where we can do it. It is just to say thank you for what has already happened and we really do think that it is the way of the future.

Q84 Chairman: Excellent. Thank you very much for your contribution. Now the lady on the front row.

Ms O'Reilley: I am Clare O'Reilley and I work for Derbyshire County Council as Countryside Access Improvement Officer. I wanted to emphasise again the partnership links between The National Forest and local authorities and also the importance of public access which I know is on your remit. Derbyshire County Council is a huge area. We put resources into The National Forest area for two reasons. One is that The National Forest has created that sort of demand and there is a need for people to see what is going on and people want to come here, but also because you said why should The National Forest exist as a company, why cannot local authorities do it? We will come down here because there is a National Forest Company. There are officers who have that local knowledge, that local connection, that we can work with to deliver that. So we see the fact that there is some public access going on and we see lots of potential for more because The National Forest is here.

Q85 Chairman: Thank you all very much indeed. It is genuinely a real pleasure for the Committee to hear personal testament from local people about any of our inquiries. We always try very hard to say that our activities are both transparent and indeed open to anyone, but not everyone takes up the opportunity to put in their two penny-worth, so I am very grateful to members of the audience for putting their own perspective on all of these matters. What you have said will form part of our little report on these activities. Can I thank again both our panels of witnesses because I think you have helped, in your own ways, to make the subject live for us and to give us a better insight of not only what has been achieved and what it means for the local community but, more importantly, some of the challenges that you face, which I think a report from the Committee can underscore for those who come after because we are now in the dying weeks of the current Parliament. We hope there will be sufficient time for us to write up our views as a result of this. It will serve as a benchmark by which future policy in this area can be judged. May I close by thanking the centre very much indeed for their hospitality in providing this facility and in providing us with an excellent lunch. You should have seen the smiles on the faces of Members when they learned that chips would be available! We have thoroughly enjoyed this whistle-stop tour around The National Forest. Thank you all very much for coming and being part of this inquiry. I know that you will look forward to seeing the report. For those who are not necessarily able to purchase a copy one can be viewed free of charge in due course on the Committee website. Thank you very much indeed for coming this afternoon and thank you for your contribution to our inquiry. I know that if David Taylor had been here, he too, would have been delighted with what has happened here today.

Ms Churchill: On behalf of all of us, not just the National Forest Company but indeed all those who live and work in the forest, it has been a day of delight. It has been very, very nice to have you here. The National Forest, whilst it relies on all sorts of goodwill has always very much benefited from Westminster's interest and involvement, but not always a sighting of you, so it is much appreciated and may the next few weeks and months and retirements and everything else go very well.

Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. This is where the Committee's road show comes to an end because we will not be doing another one of these. I cannot think of a better place to end our run, so thank you very much.