Gethin, Allen's Estate & Merthyr Vale Forest Resource Plan Consultation

We asked for your comments on the Gethin, Allen’s Estate and Merthyr Vale Forest Resource Plan. The Forest Resource Plan is a high level plan that determines the overall management of the woodlands, setting out the long term objectives for each woodland (ancient woodland restoration, native woodland management, or standard forestry management, for example), and the general approach to any restocking, such as with native broadleaf or coniferous species. But the plan does not go into the specific day to day management of the estate, this is provided by our Land Management and Forest Operations Teams, whose work the plan informs.

We had a relatively low level of responses to this consultation with only 11 people/organisations taking the time to provide comments through our online citizen space portal or directly by email. Our face to face drop in sessions saw around 17 members of the public or local organisations come to talk to us. Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond, as your feedback is greatly valued.

There was broad support for the aims reduce our clear-fell within this plan and continue to manage and restore pockets of ancient woodland and riparian areas. Lots of the responses we had in person at our drop-in sessions or online mentioned use of the forests for walking and mountain biking indicating how important these forests are as a resource and opportunity to connect with nature in this area.

We had some responses with concerns over anti-social behaviours, with fly-tipping, litter and  illegal off road motor vehicles in the forest being reported. It is important to us that you continue to report fly-tipping and off-road incidents to us so these can be dealt with. Fly-tipping on our land should be reported to the 24/7 incident line or via the online form here Natural Resources Wales / Report an environmental incident or phone 0300 065 3000. This allows the local teams to arrange to collect evidence and clear it up. If the fly-tipping is not within our managed forest this must be reported to the relevant Local Authority.

Illegal off-roading should be reported to the police 101 number. These reports are vitally important to build up evidence and intelligence to target future resource in the right locations.

Responses also mentioned the importance of our natural and historical environments such as our ancient woodland, old stone walls, cairns and wildlife.

All comments have been passed on and discussed with the relevant local teams.

We recognise that certain recreational pressures are a concern and we work hard to encourage responsible recreation. The renewal of the Forest Resource Plan as included an Objective to work with partners,  such as the police, to discourage anti-social behaviour such as illegal off road bikes and fly-tipping – this is why your reports are so important to us so we can understand the priority areas to focus on within our forests.

We recognise the importance of the historical environment within the plan area and its many old stone walls, cairns and farmsteads as well as more recent industrial history and will continue to protect this. We have included an Objective within the renewed plan to Protect the Historic Environment. All of the plan maps show where we have agreed on open space around scheduled monuments as agreed with CADW and we work closely with them on management plans for these sites, we are also in regular contact with Heneb to keep our records up to date on all other archaeological features that require protection.

We understand how important our forest environment is for wildlife, some of which is rare and threatened. We have plans to further enhance habitat over the next 10 year for the benefit of some of the more rare and threatened species, which will also have subsequent benefits for a whole host of other species.