Forestry Commission: operational update
This update provides details on how we are prioritising to help support core work.
We have experienced high levels of interest in both woodland creation through our England Woodland Creation Offer and woodland management through Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier. We need to balance the needs to process these grants as well as cover our regulatory duties whilst we continue to recruit and train additional staff (particularly within our Area teams) over the summer months.
Our priorities
Our top priority is to support as many woodland creation proposals (through EWCO and regulatory approvals for our woodland creation partners) as soon as possible to give those proposals the best chance of being planted this winter. We are also processing Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier applications and undertaking our regulatory duties, keeping our processes as efficient as possible but maintaining effective scrutiny.
How will we manage this?
This summer we will focus on woodland creation (EWCO) and woodland management (Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier) grants. Please bear with us and as soon as we have more scope and capacity to pick-up or return to outstanding cases we will progress them as swiftly as possible.
Who you can contact to talk about this?
We will review our approach later this year as we start to update the overall framework for operational delivery for the next calendar year.
If you have any general queries your initial point of contact should be sent to: grnationalteam@forestrycommission.gov.uk.
If you have specific queries about a case in progress, please get in touch with the team dealing with your case, or your usual point of contact.