Plans to sell forests across England, that included Grizedale Forest in the Lake District, have been shelved. The proposal, which included offloading over quarter of a million hectares of woodland, did not go down with the public.
The government is allowed to sell off up to 15% off state-owned forests in each public-spending period but, no doubt due to the immense opposition, has declared that it won’t sell off this season’s 15% without making legal safeguards that ensure any land sold is “fully protected both for biodiversity and public access”.
Useful links:
BBC News article
Tourist attractions in the UK (including England’s protected woodlands)
2 Comments
Do you think the Government will sell the people of Britain to cover the deficit?
If we privatise the people of Britain then we can use a Private Funded Initiative (PFI) to pay for their services and then it’ll only cost 3x as much in the long run to keep the people… :-)
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[...] The Independent newspaper is running a £5000 competition to write an essay on what the government should do with the nations forests after the recent shelving of the plans to sell off Britain’s forests. [...]
[...] is quite important following the scrapping of the government plans to sell off large chunks of the UKs forests, as the public have now for the first time really been engaged in the idea that they do have access [...]