Wood access to be restricted
Residents in Scone used to wandering freely in a local wood are being warned felling work scheduled to start this week will see access to certain areas restricted over the next few months.
Scone and District Community Council (SDCC) received word late last week that some routes regularly used by locals in Old Scone Wood and Muirward/Highfield Wood will need to be sealed off while forestry workers thin specific areas.
Estate agents Savills, who manage the woods on behalf of Mansfield Estate, wrote to SDCC saying timber harvesting operations which were scheduled to start yesterday within Old Scone Wood will be finished in a fortnight.
But they reckon work scheduled to start within Muirward/Highfield Wood in mid-June might take six to eight weeks to complete meaning people’s access to certain areas might be restricted until August.
Savills told SDCC: “We will be thinning … forest areas to produce much needed pallet log and biomass products.
The former are in high demand to cope with the distribution of goods and supplies and the latter to heat hospitals and other public service buildings – both products being key requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Discussing the work being done within Old Scone Wood over the next fortnight, Savills continued: “The wood will be lightly thinned, with some small areas of wind damaged trees near the A93 being tidied up.
“The long term desire for this area of woodland is to convert it to a less commercial, mixed conifer/ broadleaved wood and this thinning will be the first step to that transformation.
“We are aware of several desire line paths through this section of wood and these will be temporarily closed for reasons of public safety, reopened after works are complete.”
And discussing the work scheduled to start within Muirward/Highfield Wood next month Savills went on: “The final detail of which area will commence first has to be agreed with the timber purchaser, but it is anticipated the thinning near the main forest access road from the A93 at Highfield will be carried out first, with the thinning at the north end of the forest thereafter.
“We are aware of several informal desire line paths in the vicinity … and the route to the King Tree … as well as the use by members of the public of the main forest roads.
“The informal paths will need to [be] temporarily closed to safeguard the health and safety of visiting members of the public and these closures will be sign posted. We will reopen the paths as soon as possible after works are complete and will do our best to keep machinery and branches etc. off the paths.”
SDCC said in a statement released last week it was grateful for the notification but added its members were “disappointed” about the timing of the work as many locals have been walking in the woods far more regularly since restrictions on travel came into effect under the coronavirus lockdown.
The group told the PA: “We are grateful to the estate for notifying us about the tree thinning in the woods above Scone, however we are disappointed that they have chosen to do this when the Scone woods have never been more used or valued, and this usage will continue as lockdown measures continue, with the recommendation to meet people outside.
“They state this will require small paths to be closed, but we are concerned that lorries will also churn up the larger paths, as has happened before, making the woods almost inaccessible.
“Further, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds recommends tree cutting not be done between March and August as this is bird nesting time, we thus respectfully ask that tree thinning be delayed until September.”
Responding to that statement a spokesperson for Savills said it was unlikely the work will be postponed but stressed staff have already identified trees with nests and these will not be felled.