Neighbours

[John H]

Following on from the toolpool thread, those of you that own a plot of a larger woodland,how well do you get on with your neighbours, how often do you meet them ? Do you ever work together? Is there and overall plan for the woodland?

When we were looking to buy we viewed a plot just above Llandrindod Wells, a spruce clearfell site on which birch had taken over. I keep meaning to go back a see what has happened to it.

John

[tracy]

Hi John

Some owners do get on very well and a very few decide that they don't want to. All ok, we all buy woods for different reasons. Many of us meet the other owners in the woods to chat to - and swog can help everyone to get in touch. Some woods having training days together, and yes, some all contribute to one management plan in their own way.

Varies really, but the best woods are ones in which people talk to each other!

[Exeldama]

Echo Tracy. mine are nice folk, but i like to do my own thing. Im not inclined to see an overall management plan imposed after all i bought it to get away from lifes rules.

One of my neighbours though nice is bonkers and seems to not like wildlife unless its a Blue tit, but thats their buissness, just frustrating to think im encouraging wildlife only for a neighbour to kill it... long term i will educate them a bit... or bind them in masking tape.

my other neighbour is really progressive, has loads of ideas and a definite tea spot. The others keep to themselves which is fine. so on th whole ok.

[Catweazle]

I have found that having "corporate" neighbours has been great. I have the Woodland Trust on one boundary, Forestry Commission on another and a commercial orchard on the third. I have benefitted to the tune of about 900yds of deer / stockproof fence so far.

[docsquid]

Our neighbours are a horse farm on one side and an arable farm on the other, with the road at one end the canal at the other. The horse farm neighbours are friendly, and we have visited them, and they seem pretty positive about what we are doing. They have a small number of industrial units and it was one of their tenants who advised us that we had been fly-tipped.

The farmer on the other side we see rarely, as it is usually an employee who does the ploughing/harrowing/harvesting. He doesn't contact us or help at all, which means we have to cut our own roadside hedge instead of chipping in to have his bloke do ours with his flail. He also cut down a large branch off a TPO protected oak in our wood in order to do some drainage work on his land - he could have phoned us and we could have got permission, now we are liable for the damage he has done, should anybody complain about it. It hasn't damaged the tree, but he still shouldn't have done it. We mainly have contact via his vermin control man who shoots the pigeons and rabbits. We will need to contact him about possibly ring-barking two sycamores on his side of the boundary - goodness knows what he'll be like about it.

[John H]

We have 3 farms bordering our wood. All are very friendly and helpful. I make a point of calling in to see the nearest farmer and his Mum. It is impossible to get away with out going in and having a cup opf tea and piece of cake. He gives me his 1 ton feed bags for me to put logs in. The farmer on the other side helps me out too, when my small Zetor tractor fell in two he came over with his tele porter and lifted it onto a trailer and took it down to a engineer who live at the bottom of the access track. We could not have better neighbours.