Teesmouth Bird Club

Well, well a U-turn in all its completeness! I see on TV this morning that the coalition has cancelled its plans to privatise any of the forests in England and to set up a panel of experts to review and propose how best to manage the forests for amenity and conservation. I would expect the big hitters like the Wildlife Trusts, RSPB and National Trust to be players, but at a local level, for detailed input, clubs such as ourselves must continue to be players too.
Off now for a celebratory doughnut for my elevenses.
Alistair McLee

victory for all those people who signed the petition , it just as well that over 500.000 people did think like certain individuals with their negative attitude who felt that petitions were not worth the effort! 

sorry but in my excitement over the victory I made mistake in my last post it should read:

victory for all those people who signed the petition , it just as well that over 500.000 people did not think like certain individuals with their negative attitude who felt that petitions were not worth the effort!

I agree, Alan.  There is little doubt that the strength of public opposition made the Government realise that they were on a hiding to nothing.  The thing that concerns me, however, is how poorly this whole plan was thought through and rushed into the public domain.  I think,though, that we must give the Government some credit for at least acknowledging their mistake and ditching its proposals.

As Ali says, it is important for the TBC to continue to be involved in decisions over our local forests. We had a significant input into the 'Guisborough Forest Plan' and I'm sure the Forestry Commission benefited from this.  Sadly, Cleveland is deficient in woodland, as is the UK as a whole when compared to other Eurpoean countries and we will do what we can to encourage further forest planting.

Ted