Forestry: Contractor feared business was 'gone' amid paperwork delay

Nick Adams believed Kilmaha Forestry was on the verge of collapse when it experienced an extended wait for the Forestry Commission go ahead, which saw the Gloucestershire-based firm miss its planned start date. This was despite submitting its planting applications in June of last year. 

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Coming amid the UK’s continued failure to hit its planting targets of 30,000 hectares annually, Nick, who is also a senior member of the Forestry Contracting Association (FCA), says problems over paperwork are “fairly common” across the country. 

“It’s horrible,” he said. “I genuinely thought in January that I would go out of business. My team is really good at what we do. We apply good contractors, we’re conscientious; I want to expand the business. But for the first three months of planting season, we were sat doing nothing, trying to scrape bits of work together.

“The whole point of our business is to plant trees, but we have a finite amount of time to do it in. We’re wasting the first half of it for what reason I don’t know.

“This goes on year after year. It happened last year as well and we were still planting towards the end of May, start of June. There seems to be a lack of organisation and care.” 

Speaking to the BBC’s Farming Today, Nick added: “It really impacts on contractors – and all of us. Harvesters, fencers, etc. The whole industry isn’t prepared. I don’t think we can rely on the targets.

 Nick Adams believes paperwork delays are rife (Image: Supplied)

“We don’t have a chance of hitting them. We can’t get the staff or attract people to the industry.

"There are much better options with much better pay and conditions. The forestry industry isn’t competing with other industries."

An FC spokesperson urged contractors to get applications in ahead of the planting season.