Policy Conference 2025 | Unfounded criticism feeding investment uncertainty

One audience member said that when schemes were delivering significant benefits for the UK environment and economy, their strategic importance had to be given much more weight.

David Robertson, Investment & Business Development Director at Scottish Woodlands Ltd, said he and his colleagues were engaging in "courageous conversations" to address criticism of planting schemes at local level. Both he and Mr Hughes said early-stage, more informal engagement was helpful in answering very basic questions about projects.

"It’s about taking the heat out of conversations, communicating at the earliest possible stage, and not waiting until you are on the defensive," Mr Hughes said.

Xander Mahony, Head of Forestry Investment at Tilhill, said one of the core challenges was that people generally did not like change, and that afforestation often represented something new and uncertain to local communities.

David Robertson said there was a major problem with regulators demanding that developers go way above the UKFS and deliver UKFS+ or UKFS++ schemes. He said this often added to already lengthy timeframes in getting schemes approved, and bemoaned regional variations and inconsistencies.

"We need stable regulation with clear and defined outcomes," he said, "not five different conservancies and 50 woodland officers all with different opinions."

Olly Hughes said uncertainty and heightened risk meant there was a danger that capital would go to forestry schemes elsewhere, with Australia currently a very favourable market delivering swift approvals and double-digit returns. He said his message to Mary Creagh would be: "Be bold and have conviction to support our sector; there will never be such a great amount of capital waiting to be invested in forestry."