Trennet Bank Plantation

Climbing from William Beck Farm. Across Bilsdale the overnight snowfall picks the remains of the Trennet Bank Plantation, an unsightly conifer woodland that was felled by the National Park Authority in 2015/6 under their Trennet Bank Project. The plantation of Sitka spruce and Lodgepole pine dates from the 1970s. It was planted close to the skyline and surrounded by three sides by SSSI moorland and isolated from other woodlands. It had become uneconomic to either manage or harvest the trees. So under the Trennet Bank Project, the National Park Authority put in a proposal to clear fell and restore the area to moorland and native woodland. One of the conditions of being granted a Forestry Commission licence to fell trees is to replant the same area. Because it was proposed to plant only 20% of the felled area with native trees, additional woodland sites had to be found down in the valley. The operation required the construction of a temporary access track and bridge over the river. The National Park Authority is to be congratulated for taking this initiative and removing this eyesore, but I would like to know the economics of the original scheme in the 70s. I presume the landowner would have received some sort of grant for planting the plantation. How did he propose to manage and eventually to extract trees? And who is the current landowner? The National Park Authority’s blog says that the timber was sold allowing some recouping of the costs. My suspicion, and I would very much like to be told otherwise, is that the landowner will not have lost out while the taxpayer will have footed the bill.