as the published budget is partitioned with
a proportion available for more expensive
projects. And we have generally been able
to accommodate the mix of projects that
have come forward, ranging from £3k to
£15k per hectare, and haven’t had to reject
any applications or ask for many changes to
make sure we hit the target average cost as
well as the target area.
Going forward, this may become more of
a challenge, particularly where we receive
larger applications with very high costs
per hectare. These are difficult for us to
accommodate, and where we are concerned
about the value for money and our ability
to afford high per-hectare costs, we need
to ask applicants to either reconsider their
designs and come up with a more cost-
effective plan or limit the grant contribution.
This only tends to occur where projects
have long linear planting designs with very
high fencing costs. We do occasionally haveto remind ourselves that we manage the
Forestry Grant Scheme and not the Fencing
Grant Scheme.
Looking forward, we are now in a much
more comfortable position in terms of
approvals for this year. We started 2019 with
over 10,000 ha of planting already approved.
Of this, 8,000 ha was for 2019 and the rest
was for through to 2024. Hopefully this gives
us and the forestry industry more confidence
that we will be able to sustain and build on
last year’s 11,000 ha of planting, and that
their trees and services will definitely be
required, in 2019 and beyond.
We are aiming to be in a similar position
in early 2020, particular as Scottish
Government and sector ambitions for
woodland creation grow and the need
to contribute to climate change targets
continues to increase. In fact, we are aiming
to start next year with over 10,000 ha of
woodland creation already committed for
2020 and another 5,000 ha or so for future
years. We believe this is realistic as we
know the industry is currently working on
over 22,000 ha of woodland creation projects
across Scotland, and the new approval
process is helping us to deal with many of
these more efficiently (and quickly).The conifer/
native split for the
approved area.