I NOTED with interest the words of Tory councillor Steve McMillan recently, blithely supporting his Party's line about the potential sale of our public woods to anyone with a deep enough pocket to buy and run them.  As chairman of the local Conservative Association, he presumably feels obliged to support his MP and Party.   However, as a councillor, should he not also be paying heed to the concerns and issues facing his constituents?

 It's all very well following your party line, but some issues decided nationally may not necessarily be in the interests of the local community.     If politicians are to be credible with the public there has to be a point where party politics are put aside in the interests of the locality.   It seems at times politicians  lose sight of the fact that they were elected by the public to represent their best interests.

In the case of our forests, we do not yet know precisely what the Government is planning.   However, the suggestions that our Forest could be sold to community groups and run – as Steve suggests – by a 'co-operative not-for-profit company' is difficult to comprehend, when according to reports, the Forestry Commission is already having to be subsided by over £0.5 million annually by the Government to meet its costs in the Forest of Dean.

The local Association should know better than this since some of its senior members were only recently involved in setting up a Community Interest Company to commission health services in the Forest.  Despite being given some £30,000 of support by the local district council, the project has been mothballed with the funding all gobbled up in consultancy fees and costs to set up the operation.

To suggest that local people should dip into their pockets and buy the Forest – which we all currently own anyway – is a recipe for potential problems and very unlikely to happen.   The most likely scenario is that the bids will come from commercial enterprises and the only way they will even enter the fray is if they can see a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

While conditions may be imposed on them to keep our forests open, they will not buy without some commercial development taking place.  

Of course all this is just speculation – we need to know precisely what is being planned and then be given the opportunity to have a say.

This is one issue where our local politicians need to rebel against the Party 'whip' (it does exist!) and represent the views of the people who elected them and we all need to start questioning the motives of those who try to sweeten the pill with unrealistic political suggestions.

– James Winship, Alvington.