THIS is an open letter to the Leader of the Forest of Dean Council.

'I attended the council meeting last Thursday and was alarmed by the misinformation that pervaded the chamber and the lack of appreciation of the issues relating to this matter, a matter of immense importance to the people of the Forest of Dean.  I trust therefore that you will not object to me addressing the matter by way of an open letter, it is too important to deal with in any other way.

At the meeting a member observed: "We are discussing legal points which we haven't really grasped".  Another suggested an adjournment to clarify the legal position.  Does this not suggest that the council should have had an item placed on the agenda to discuss the issue with the benefit of an officers' report explaining the law and the intricacies involved?  Was it not seen to be of sufficient significance to warrant that?

 In the absence of a report the quality of the debate and, as I will show later in this letter, the resolution cobbled together at the last moment were poorer than then this issue and the people of the Forest of Dean deserve.

It was said at the meeting that no proposal had as yet been received from the Government.  But, as you will know, the Public Bodies Bill, was introduced in the House of Lords over a month ago and on any reading of it will have a profound effect on the Forest if it passes unamended into statute.  To your credit you had familiarised yourself with the Bill and were in a position to debate the Government's proposals. You referred to the "rights" and "freedoms" mentioned in the Bill and, I believe, did so to persuade the meeting that the "rights" to the Forest we enjoy are not threatened by the Bill.  In this you reflected Defra's promise that "Full measures will remain in place to preserve the public benefits of woods and forests under any new ownership arrangements.  ... public rights of way and access will be unaffected ..."

 You referred to either Clause 8 or sub-clause (8), I am uncertain which.  But, if I understood you correctly, you said words to the effect that the Secretary of State's power to make an order under the Bill was qualified, that he could do so only if he considers that the order "does not prevent any person from continuing to exercise any right or freedom which that person might reasonably expect to continue to exercise". 

Since the meeting I have looked again at the Bill.  Clause 8 contains the qualification but that clause is concerned with the abolition and merging of offices and bodies, the modifying of constitutional and funding arrangements, the transfer of functions and delegation and was not relevant to the motion before the council.

Clause 13 also has the qualification but it is concerned exclusively with the powers of Welsh ministers.

I conclude that you must have been referring to Clause 18, the only remaining clause containing the qualification, at sub-clause (8).  Clause 18 falls within that part of the Bill relating to forestry and deals with the powers of the Secretary of State to modify the constitutional arrange­ments and functions of the Forestry Commissioners, and to the transfer of their functions to another person.  

Clause 18 is of concern but it was not that to which the motion referred. Councillor Winship addressed her motion specifically to the sale of forestry land and it is to Clause 17 that we must refer.  Sub-clause (1) of Clause 17 states:

"This section applies to the functions of the Secretary of State under the following provisions of the Forestry Act 1967 -

(a)  Section 39(2) (disposal)."

The exercise of the Clause 17 functions are not qualified in the way you suggested, it makes no reference to rights and freedoms.  The provision you cited is therefore entirely misleading.

Even if the qualification applied to disposals it would not help the Forest. Rights and freedoms are capable of enforcement at law but our use and enjoyment of the Forest arises from historic privileges, not rights and freedoms. 

You will know from the Hansard reports of the 1981 debates I copied to you on the 4th December that "The Forest of Dean is wholly different (from other woodlands). It is an historic Crown forest in which an entire community has developed, using and enjoying the land in many ways which are not protected by legal rights. ... It is those privileges which can be wholly lost if this land is sold to private persons."  The words of Lord Bledisloe QC who (I remind you in view of the nature of Thursday's debate) clearly loved the Forest. His family has lived on the very edge of the Forest for more than 250 years and his father and grandfather and, he believed, more remote ancestors had all been verderers of the Forest.

As Lord Kilmarnock said in the 1981 debates: "The Dean is in fact the only state forest where the local people have no rights whatsoever".

And to quote Lord McNeil: "...the people who live in the Forest of Dean are uniquely disadvantaged and therefore uniquely endangered by the (1981) Bill as it stands (i.e. before the amendment exempting the Forest from the power of disposal), because for various historical reasons they have no legal rights of common or of access. Instead they have customary privileges, which are fully recognised by the Forestry Commission, and it is difficult to see how these de facto privileges could possibly be safeguarded if any part of the Forest of Dean were to pass into private hands."

Thursday's debate demonstrated a failure on the part of some to appreciate the distinction between rights and privileges and that failure jeopardises all that was achieved in 1981: the exemption of the Forest from the power of disposal and the preservation of its customs and traditions.  Does it not occur to members that if those customs and privileges are lost, if the character of the Forest changes (as it inevitably must if it is sold off) tourism in the area will plummet with dire consequences for the local economy and employment?

There are other matters raised at the meeting with which I take issue.

It was said that there have been wholesale sales of Forest land and that excluding the Forest from the power of disposal would not achieve anything as the Forestry Commission has been selling off land and will continue to do so.  Do councillors really believe this?  To throw this into the debate without identifying the land in question and its status is entirely unhelpful and should not have gone unchallenged.  

As you know land within the Forest may be sold "if it is not needed, or ought not to be used, for the purpose of afforestation or any purpose connected with forestry".  So woodlands used for afforestation are protected; other Forestry Commission land may be sold.  If members know of the disposal of protected woodlands why has the council not acted to protect the Forest?

Similarly, for reference to be made to "brownfield sites" as though that status has any bearing on what may or may not be sold under the Forestry Act is entirely misleading and demonstrates a poor understanding of the issues involved.

I have read the resolution passed at Thursday's meeting and wonder what interpretation the Secretary of State will put on it, it is sufficiently vague to be capable of more than one meaning.  Instead of "This council is opposed to any selling off of forest land that would compromise the protection of  our most valuable and bio diverse forest and lead to greater commercial exploitation and

possibly reduced access" could your amendment not simply have said "This Council is opposed to the disposal of any land within the Forest of Dean which is needed or is used for the purpose of afforestation or any purpose connected with forestry"?  (I have borrowed the words of the Forestry Act 1967 as amended by the 1981 Act).

What is meant by "possibly" reduced access?  Does the council doubt that access will be curtailed in the event of privatisation?  The 1981 Hansard Reports indicate unequivocally that it will be.

The first and last parts of the resolution are mutually contradictory: the first allows sales (if the forest is not compromised in the way suggested), the last seeks to prevent all privatisation. 

When does the council anticipate consultation will take place?  By not specifying this the council invites delay.  I believe Councillor Winship's motion sought consultation before the Bill is introduced into the House of Commons.  Why was this unacceptable to the Council?

The council will defend our historic rights, traditions and privileges.  To what historic rights does the resolution refer?  

What "possible action" to prevent privatisation is envisaged?  Will the council seek an injunction if the privatisation of any publicly owned forestry land in the Forest of Dean is proposed?  Should regard not be had to what the law allows?  There surely should be no objection to the privatisation of publicly owned forestry land in accordance with the Forestry Act 1967 as amended by the 1981 Act, i.e. land within the Forest which "is not needed, or ought not to be used, for the purpose of afforestation or any purpose

connected with forest­ry".  The legislation permits the Forestry Com­mission to sell it.  So for the council to resolve to take every possible action to prevent the privatisation of land which the statute says may be sold reflects a misunderstanding of the position and of the council's powers.

The adjourned meeting next Wednesday affords the council an opportunity to reconsider its position and ensure a coherent resolution.  Is not the most straightforward way of preserving the Forest to ask Parliament to exempt the Forest (and the contiguous woodlands like Highmeadow, Clearwell and Hope) from the effects of the Bill in the same way that the Forest was recognised as unique and treated as a special case in 1981 and exempted from the power of disposal in Section 2 of the Forestry Act 1967?

It was said on all sides of the chamber on Thursday evening that members love the Forest, that they want to keep it as it is.  If they are sincere in that they need to be reminded of what Lord McNeil said when he introduced his amendment to the Forestry Bill in 1981: "I want to emphasise that there is no party politics at all in this amendment. The friend who first alerted me to the danger is a Liberal; the chairman of the district council who came to London last Wednesday to plead with the Ministers to accept the amendment is a Labour councillor; and we have the wholehearted support of the Member of Parliament concerned for West Gloucestershire who is, of course, a Conservative. I am hopeful, too, that support may come from all points of the compass in this Chamber. So let us forget party politics—as we often do, I think, when we are at our best—and discuss this very important matter entirely on its merits."

On behalf of all those who live in and who visit the Forest and those who strove so successfully to protect the Forest in 1981 and 1994, and the generations to come, may I plead with the council to be at its best, to forget party politics and discuss this matter entirely on its merits (members having taken the trouble to make themselves fully conversant with the issues involved beforehand).

– Alan Rob­ert­son.