I did mention milling wind fallen timber as a good rehearsal first, then later in the thread mentioned I'd found a contractor who had all the kit to do it, and we'd also costed the cost of felling and just needed to sort the license. That was two distinctly separate phases, firstly extracting and either milling or selling the wind-fallen butts, followed by moving on to the standing trees as an additional operation with the required license.
Clearly, you don't need consent for a tree to fall over, or to process it into timber once its down, and it doesn't count towards the felling or permitted quarterly quota. I can just see the FC driving round and saying to owners, "Nope, you didn't have a license for that tree to fall over, now put it back up !"
![Rolling Eyes :roll:](images/smilies/icon_rolleyes.gif)
On inspection the tree that came down a couple of days ago is like balsa wood, soft as cheese and fit only for deadwood heaps. Great habitat for bugs but not even fit for firewood. It simply snapped at the base. Many windfallen trees such as this one will be weakened by disease and not necessarily have much value or use, thats probably why they are dismissed by the FC as seperate from any official allowances.