Aware of the significant changes that were taking place in the rural sector, the RICS Rural Faculty Board decided to re-examine the role of the UK's trees, woods and forests.

The reasons for this were as follows:

• The significant changes have been taking place in policies that impact on rural development and in the future levels of financial support that are likely to be available to support it.
  
  
• The major restructuring of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy and the on-going discussions on new Rural Development Plans for England, Northern Ireland, Scotland & Wales.
  
  
• The changes that have occurred, and are occurring, in forest strategies in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland & Wales, resulting in part from devolution, and the sharpened focus on delivering public benefits at the regional level.
  
  
• The awareness that RICS members in rural areas in particular were being pressed or encouraged to look at commercial opportunities for the diversification of land uses and therefore they felt that a re-examination of the opportunities and benefits of trees, woods and forests would be very timely.

Trees and woods are having an increasing role in urban regeneration through the Greenspace agenda and wood is obtaining much higher recognition as an important renewable building material with high thermal insulation properties.

A number of reports on forestry on traditional estates in England had been funded by the RICS over the last few years.

The Board recently commissioned John Clegg Consulting Ltd to review these and to expand the coverage to include Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales and to include consideration of the roles that trees and woods have in urban areas as well as on traditional estates in England.

From the Word Downloads column (right hand side of this page), the following files which are available:

• Re-evaluating the benefits and opportunities of trees, woods and forests.
  This paper summarises some of the key findings of the full discussion paper and has been prepared by the consultants.
  
  
• Tomorrow’s Woodlands - Encouraging Woodland Owners to Deliver Sustainable Multi-purpose Forestry
  This is the full discussion paper.

RICS welcomes any comments that Members may have on these documents. Please email the Faculty rural.faculty@rics.org with any comments you may have.