MR  Taylor (Review, October 3) makes the vital point that the heart of the Forest's problem is money.  However, I cannot agree with him that the solution to this is to put our Forest into the hands of a local trust. 

People think a trust means automatic protection but that's not necessarily the case – it's simply a form of governance.

And Mr Taylor gives the answer himself as to why this is not a good idea, saying that the government proposed to gift the Forest to a locally-based trust with 'financial support until the new owners got established.'

Putting aside the fact that splitting the public forests of England and Wales into 20 or 30 locally-based trusts has the potential to open up a Pandora's box of conflicting interests not to mention the added costs of running so many organisations, how did Mr Taylor imagine the trust would ever get 'established' without resorting to commercial activities including land disposal either by sale or long term leasing?

By the way, the government never did make such an offer – at least not publicly – it was just one of many ideas floated at the time and was not recommended by the Independent Panel on Forestry whose report into the future of England's forests was loudly accepted by the Government nearly two years ago.

The only way to protect our Forest, and the rest of the public forest estate, with free access guaranteed and no whittling away of bits of land at the edges, is for the government to make good on its promise to enact new forestry legislation to achieve this. 

It has consistently failed to do so, and instead has put our forests in jeopardy once again through this all-encompassing Infrastructure Bill as described by HOOF in their open letter to Mr Harper.

No, Mr Taylor, HOOF's only defensiveness has been – and still is – to defend our forests for the people of the Dean and the myriad visitors who go away in awe of what we have here.

I would, however, much rather hear Mr Harper's views on this issue than Mr Taylor's.

As a life-long Tory voter I have been very disappointed in our MP's lack of activity on this particular matter which is dear to the hearts of all his constituents. 

It is especially concerning as Mr Harper has, as HOOF acknowledged, proved to be a hardworking MP on many other matters – just not this one.

So I would repeat HOOF's request for Mr Harper to back his constituents on securing the future of the Forest, and tell us exactly how he is doing that.

– David Harris, Blakeney.