The external consultation for the Long Mynd Forest Plan was open for six weeks in January / February 2023. Posters were put up at six points where public rights of way enter the forest, directing people to an online survey. In addition, emails were sent specifically to organisations and groups who we felt have an interest in how the site is managed eg parish councils, the Commoners Association and the local mountain biking shop.
Six of the 19 respondents to the survey describe themselves as neighbours / forest users. Seven responses were received from members of the Long Mynd and District Bridleways Association. The other respondents were Historic England, Shropshire Council's Historic Environment Team, Natural England, the National Trust and the Shopshire Hills AONB.
Feedback from forest users was generally positive:
although there was disappointment that the plan does not say much about mountain biking.
Forestry England comment:
One respondent was concerned about litter and asked what we can do to prevent it.
Forestry England comment:
And someone else asked us to “stop cutting down trees”.
Forestry England comment:
The responses from the Long Mynd and District Bridleways Association expressed their concerns that they hadn’t been consulted directly and therefore had not had time to formulate a response.
Forestry England comment:
Historic England and the Shropshire Council Historic Environment Team were pleased to see the inclusion of a scheduled monument plan for the bronze age bowl barrow, but pointed out that unscheduled historic features should be protected too.
Forestry England comment:
Natural England, the National Trust and the Shropshire Hills AONB recognise the challenge of balancing competing land uses – timber production, recreation, biodiversity – and appreciate that our Forest Plan places the creation of dynamic habitat high up on our agenda.
However, they would have liked us to create a greater amount of dynamic habitat to act as a buffer between the forest and the neighbouring heathland SSSI, and would like us to move away from a forest dominated by conifers managed by clearfelling, towards greater habitat diversity and variety of management systems, in order to protect soils and watercourses.
Forestry England comments:
Forestry England – westenglandplanning@forestryengland.uk
February 2023
The Forest Plan for Forestry England's land on the Long Mynd, is due for renewal.
Forest Plans define our long-term vision for a woodland or a collection of woodlands, and set out how our management will move towards achieving this vision over the next ten years.
We would like to invite you or your organisation to leave some feedback on our proposed revision to the Forest Plan, which is available to download below in PDF format.
As part of the forest planning process, we carry out consultation with internal and external stakeholders, to ensure that the objectives of the plan are balanced appropriately, and to meet the requirements of the UK Woodland Assurance Standard, through which our woodlands are accredited.
This online consultation will be available until Sunday 19th February 2023.
We will summarise the feedback and our responses by the end of March in the 'We asked, You said, We did' area. Your comments will be anonymous - you can choose to leave your name, but we won't include it in our summary.
Once this online stakeholder engagement has closed, we will examine the feedback and where appropriate, will incorporate suggestions into the Forest Plan. We will summarise the feedback on the 'We asked, You said, We did' page.
We will then submit the Forest Plan to the regulatory arm of the Forestry Commission for approval.
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