I HAVE read Mr Harper's article in your journal. I am not at all reassured!

Firstly, he proposes an entirely new woodland management body, a charitable trust.

He makes no mention of funding for its setting up, nor ongoing income for subsequent funding. It looks rather like a baby strangulated at birth.

He speaks of the vast array of controls over woodlands currently being efficiently discharged by the Forestry Commission for 18 per cent of England's total.

So why are we rushing via an enabling act into a "sea of unknowns." Is there widespread local and national disenchantment over the performance of the Commission? No, sir, there is not! Is the Commission hugely expensive, either locally or nationally to the public purse? No, sir, it is not!

But the Minister of Agriculture and HM Treasury are anxious to raise huge sums of money from the local communities across England selling to us shares for woodlands over which we already have a de facto ownership as Crown and Common Land. Neat trick, eh?

– Darrell Lawrence, Lan