Correspondence

eAlert: 27 May 2020 - Additional Woodland Carbon Guarantee auction information

Published 27 May 2020

Applies to England

• Publication for Northern Ireland
• Publication for Scotland
• Publication for Wales

Find out about the second auction of the Woodland Carbon Guarantee, make sure you submit your annual claim on time and get your applications in for round 2 of the Urban Tree Challenge Fund. Also read our blog on tree felling and find out how the Countryside Stewardship Woodland Creation grant supported a woodland in Cumbria.

1. Woodland Carbon Guarantee – additional auction information announced

Sign up by 5 June 2020.

We recently announced that £10 million will be available in the second auction of the Woodland Carbon Guarantee, to be held between 8 and 19 June 2020. Launched in November 2019, the Woodland Carbon Guarantee is a £50 million scheme that aims to help accelerate woodland planting rates and permanently remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Successful participants are offered the option to sell Woodland Carbon Units to the government over 35 years at a guaranteed price set by auction and protected against inflation, providing new income for land managers who help businesses compensate for their carbon emissions.

While successful bids at previous auctions are not a predictor of the success of future bids, to help address uncertainty in what still is a developing market, we have decided to share the average price paid in the last auction, which was £24.11 per Woodland Carbon Unit. We are also introducing a new competitive element into the second auction whereby the government will only buy 90% of the total number of Woodland Carbon Units that are entered into the auction below the reserve price. Further information is available in a new Guide to the Second Auction. Applicants are reminded that the auction is a competitive process and lower bids are more likely to be successful. In the first auction, held earlier this year, 18 out of the 31 applications were successful.

Land managers across England are encouraged to sign up to the scheme by 5 June 2020, ahead of the next auction which will take place online from 8 to 19 June. Applicants should bear in mind that it can take 1-2 weeks to complete the Woodland Carbon Code registration and WCaG application processes. It is important to allow sufficient time for this ahead of the auction deadline. However this period can be shortened significantly by working with a project developer, the details of whom can be found on the WCC website.

2. The annual claim deadline is approaching

Submit your annual claim by 15 June 2020.

Have you submitted your annual (revenue) claim yet?

Time is running out and we want to remind you about the key dates for returning a claim:

• 15 June 2020 (midnight) – deadline for revenue claims (without penalty)

• 30 June 2020 (midnight) – deadline to make certain changes or provide missing information like an Agent Authority form (without penalty) to a claim already submitted by midnight on 15 June

• 10 July 2020 (midnight) – late application deadline

Starting in the first week of June we will be making follow up calls to customers who have not yet submitted a claim, to remind them of the key dates and to ensure that they don’t miss a deadline and lose their payment.

It is important to provide all the information requested by us in time as we cannot pay a claim without a signed contract or a signed agent authority form.

Contact your local admin hub if you need help completing your claim form.

• Bucks Horn Oak - adminhub.buckshornoak@forestrycommission.gov.uk this Hub generally covers the East of the country
• Bullers Hill - adminhub.bullershill@forestrycommission.gov.uk this Hub generally covers the West of the country

3. UTCF application window has been extended

Thinking of applying for round 2 funding? You now have an extra month to submit your application!

The application window for Round 2 of the Urban Tree Challenge Fund has been extended to 30 June 2020. Read the recent press release to find out more, and see GOV.UK for further information on eligibility and funding.

4. Tree felling – Do you know right from wrong?

Ewan Calcott, our National Regulation Manager discusses the topic of felling trees in our recently published blog.

Felling trees without a licence, where one would have been required, is an offence. Read our blog which explains why there may be legitimate reasons for tree felling, the measures that are in place to ensure that felling is done in way which helps protect England’s highly valued trees and woodlands and what you can do to help us if you think it is happening illegally.

5. Spotlight on the benefits of woodland creation

Read our new case study.

We recently published a case study from Waterfoot Bridge in Cumbria. It is about a 22 hectare woodland that has been planted by third generation timber merchants to expand the long-term timber supply to their sawmill. Find out how the Countryside Stewardship Woodland Creation Grant supported their objectives for the woodland, and about the benefits that the woodland will bring to the local community.

If you are you considering applying for a woodland grant or looking for more information about which incentive scheme best suits your situation, our woodland grants and incentives overview table may be the perfect starting point for you to learn more about what’s on offer.

6. Let us know how we are doing

Please complete our customer survey.

If you have had a decision on a grant or regulation from the Forestry Commission recently then you should have had a link to complete our customer survey. Please do take the opportunity to give us some feedback as we have found this really useful in making improvements to the way we do business.