One of George Eustice’s final acts as environment secretary was to change the guidance to allow metal fence posts to be used in government stewardship schemes. With that, he lit the touch paper on another forestry debate.
ADD another topic to forestry’s long list of talking points. It’s not quite native versus non-native or the great conifer/broadleaf debate, but the discussion about fence posts – and the materials that make them – appears unlikely to die down anytime soon.
On one side, there are those who remain steadfastly devoted to timber, like Forestry Journal’s own Dr Terry Mabbett. In a piece earlier this year (‘A heavy metal blow for wooden fence posts’, FJ 331), he wrote: “I for one am a taxpayer who doesn’t want to see the landscape and countryside ring-fenced by metal akin to something out of Colditz.
“I would miss the natural and rustic look of wooden fence posts and fencing, especially where the softwood timber has been peeled in a non-uniform way.”
Then, on the other, there are those who celebrated former environment secretary George Eustice’s decision to allow metal fence posts to be used in the 2022 round of Countryside Stewardship applications like he had personally announced the Second Coming.
Somewhere in the middle you find Stuart Mills of McVeigh Parker, one of the largest fencing suppliers in the agricultural industry, who believes it doesn’t have to be a case of good versus evil, or the Empire against the Rebellion.
While the firm was among the fiercest advocates for the change, its business continues to be around 80 per cent timber, and Stuart doesn’t see that changing in the near future.
“We’ve argued the case and shown them the benefits of options including recycled plastic, steel element,” he said. “That’s all within the government’s stewardship schemes now. We sell an awful lot of timber. We don’t have to sell the steel, it’s not our big agenda. Timber is still around 80 per cent of our business. But it is opening it up to the end user to have that choice.”
Driving that change and demand, Stuart says, has been the increasing prevalence of woodland-creation and rewilding schemes across the country. Every tree that goes into the ground needs to be protected, and as the UK looks to reduce its reliance on overseas timber – it remains the world’s second-largest net importer of wood – this is only going to become more important in the years ahead.
Stuart, who was speaking to FJ during APF 2022, added: “There are other elements coming in now that are feeding fencing in quite a big way. We’ve seen quite a change in the last two or three years where – especially with rewilding and woodland creation – when the money comes in for the end user it becomes a viable option to turn profitable land into that woodland side of things.
READ MORE: APF 2022: British Open Fencing Competition proves a smash hit
“There’s a lot of creation schemes and the planting element that is going to feed the forestry industry.”
In many ways, it seems your choice of wood or steel just depends on which side of the fence you sit on.
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