Woodland Grant Scheme (Hansard, 4 March 1999)

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Scottish Office (Lord Sewel)

We are making two changes to the rules of the Woodland Grant Scheme today.

We are keen to improve value for money from the Woodland Grant Scheme and have concluded that the payments currently offered for creating new woodland do not reflect the economies of scale available when creating very large forests. Payments for these large forests significantly reduce the funds available for delivering our other forestry objectives.

We have therefore decided that from today fixed rate grants will no longer be available for applications to create new woodlands of 300 hectares or more. They will be replaced by a grant linked to the overall costs likely to be incurred by the applicant over the first 10 years. Normally the grant will be 60 per cent. of the costs, which will be agreed in negotiation with the owners. However, where there are particularly important public benefits in relation to achieving Biodiversity Action Plan targets, or helping crofter or community-based forestry schemes, it may be possible to pay 80 per cent. of the agreed costs. These payments will not exceed the grant that would have been paid using the current fixed rate grants.

The rules of the Woodland Grant Scheme have also been amended from today so that grants are no longer available for land where the landowner has terminated an agricultural tenancy by means of a contested notice to quit. This change, which follows a recommendation in the Scottish Land Reform Policy Group's Report, is intended to discourage landowners from terminating tenancies, against the wishes of their tenants, in order to convert the land to woodland.

Both these changes will apply throughout Great Britain.

More detailed information on these changes is available from the Forestry Commission.