Privatising forests must be a sensible policy if so many celebs are against it
The more passionate the outcry against the government’s plan to privatise its English forestry estate, the more I feel the urge to cash in my meagre investments and bid for one of the forests in question myself. For a start, any policy which attracts the opposition of Tracey Emin, Ken Livingstone and Dame Vivienne Westwood is likely, on close examination, to be entirely sensible. And a holding of woodland is, after all, the perfect answer to my twin concerns for the immediate future, expressed here last month, of inflation and social disorder.
Managed forests grow in timber value at a steady 4 or 5 per cent per annum — because that’s how nature works, and British forests grow faster than those in the more northerly climes because we have better soil and a warmer, wetter climate. We also have compulsory replanting requirements that make our forests more sustainable, plus they come with nifty tax advantages and without any of the ticking-timebomb complexities of financial products pushed by wealth managers.
More importantly, perhaps — and even if I can only afford a copse or a thicket — when rampaging anarchists come to get me, having mistaken me for a banker, they’ll have to find my treehouse first. And having lavished attention and expense over many years on the wellbeing of the 50-odd trees I already own, I strongly refute any suggestion that because I belong to the private sector I would be a less responsible steward than the publicly accountable Forestry Commission.
On the contrary, like many private owners, I’m sure I would develop a deep relationship with my beautiful trees. Examples range from Jimmy Goldsmith, the billionaire stockmarket player (and father of Zac) who protected himself against the 1987 crash by acquiring millions of acres of American timber and Mexican jungle, to the publisher-poet Felix Dennis, who planted his own forest in Warwickshire. And the private-equity player Guy Hands, whose star has fallen since he bought the troubled music group EMI, must be glad his wife Julia had the sense to invest £15 million of their fortune in Scottish woodlands.
Another enthusiastic owner in that part of the world is Angus MacDonald, who sold his successful media business some years ago and invested in 3,500 acres of forest. When I tracked him down in the woods this week, he told me: ‘Forestry is an extremely good asset class that can only get better. Other than Russia, timber is in short supply everywhere in the world, especially in India and China.’
He believes pension funds — long-term holders who would rely on professional management advice — will be the biggest buyers of the Commission’s commercial forests, representing about two thirds of the estate, and that the sensitive ‘heritage’ forests which the radical celebs are so upset about would be better given, rather than sold, to charities such as the Woodland Trust. The rump of the Commission could then concentrate on being an industry regulator, having shed its confused current roles as a timber producer and a provider of outdoor recreation.
Several hundred million raised for the Treasury; some serious, dedicated and happy new owners of trees; and the heritage in safe hands. Put like that, it’s hard to see what all the fuss is about.
Mixed signals
So farewell, Wrexham, Shropshire and Marylebone Railway Company, which has been afflicted by what might be described as a tragic mix-up in the rail-industry signal box. In a week when national demand for train tickets was declared to be at its highest peacetime level since the 1920s, the brave little WSMR recorded a 96 per cent passenger satisfaction rating on Wednesday and crashed into the buffers on Friday.
Its ultimate owner, Deutsche Bahn, has decided no longer to subsidise a venture which had no reasonable prospect of moving into profit. We can’t blame the German state rail giant for taking that view on behalf of its hard-pressed taxpayer owners, but even those of us who never took the chance to enjoy WSMR’s gently paced meander through middle England, and its much-praised restaurant car, must lament the demise of one of the very few means of public transport in modern Britain to have won the genuine affection of its passengers.
The economic situation didn’t help, but neither did so-called ‘moderation of competition’ rules designed to protect mainline franchisees such as Virgin against ‘open access’ upstarts like WSMR — which was not allowed to stop in Birmingham or Coventry, and could drop passengers at Wolverhampton but not pick them up there. Scenic stops at Leamington Spa, Shrewsbury and Chirk just could not provide sufficient passengers to make the proposition viable.
The same rules prevent the only independently owned ‘open access’ operator, Grand Central, from stopping south of the Yorkshire border — but ironically that’s one reason why the Yorkshire gentry have taken it to their hearts. It’s non-stop after York, it’s cheaper than the charmless, state-run East Coast service, and it’s manned by staff recruited in its home town of Sunderland who take pride in giving 95 per cent satisfaction, second only to WSMR — as against 89 per cent for East Coast and an 84 per cent national average in the autumn 2010 survey published last week. On top of all that, there’s every chance of meeting your friends on it. On a good day, it’s like a picnic in the car park at the local point-to-point.
After early problems with rolling stock and a falling-out among its founders, Grand Central now looks relatively robust. The service from Sunderland via York is covering its costs, a newer service from Bradford is chugging along behind, and a west coast route to Blackpool is mooted for next year, when ‘moderation of competition’ rules expire.
What a shame W&S didn’t live to see that day. I’m convinced that privatisation, whether of forests or trains, is a good thing in principle. But its least satisfactory manifestation is to be found in the paucity of exceptions to the general rule of modern railways, which is that as demand rises, competition shrinks, fares soar and no one gives a toss about the poor bloody passenger.
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