Coppicing prices

[rob39]

Hi all
Bit of a shot in the dark here but an neighbour has asked me how much would it cost to cut 3 acres of coppice per year. The wood is 21 acres in total and split into 7 coups of mixed broad leaf trees. Ash, Hazel, Rowan, Alder, Goat willow, Birch, Beech with good standards of Oak, Chestnut, Ash. Some of the wood has been coppiced before some 15 years ago and the rest never been touched and appears around 20 years old. Standards will be 50+ years and will not be touched.
So roughly how long would it take 1 man to coppice an acre of forest split and stack the lengths and what is the going rate if any.

[oldclaypaws]

Any agreement will depend on what happens to the harvested wood. There are plenty of people who would be happy to do the coppice work for free if they kept the wood, to use themselves or sell as firewood. Often these things are sorted by gentleman's agreement rather than money changing hands. Our council use certain people to coppice their woods who pay a peppercorn rent but keep all the harvested timber. 3 acres is a large area and if paying someone to do it but the owner wants to keep all the timber themselves, it could prove expensive. The time it'll take will depend on how dense the growth is, whether the brash is burnt or just stacked, the nature of the ground, how fast the person works and how far the harvested timber has to be moved. There are too many variables to give a precise answer.

[Rankinswood]

A good number of years ago in north Hampshire (near Winchester), Hampshire county Council played host to a coppice auction. This was not to sell the land but to sell the rights to harvest specific areas of hazel coppice. I was surprised at just how low a price the various lots were sold for with some as little as £100 / acre which might reflect the quality status of each lot auctioned i.e. overgrown or in rotation.

Rankinswood

[rob39]

All the firewood is being used by the landowner (very large estate house) The brash will be stacked and burnt for charcoal in the summer. Luckily the undergrowth is not that heavy and the land is relatively flat though the forest is dense. Distance to the house ranges from a 100mts to a couple of miles. The wood will be cut to just over a metre, thicker lengths split then stored in racks at the coppice site to season. At collecting time (rougthly when I go back to coppice another section the following year) I'll cut the stack wood into 9" lengths and throw into the owners trailer.
Past experience on my own wood, an acre would take around 3 n half to 4 weeks to cut (5 day week) and some research I've done so far, price appears £75 a day £1500 per acre