A new forest or money for the NHS?

I’m all for woodlands, wherever they are going to be, but I don’t really “get” these forest projects. It sounds like the Northern Forest is going to be something like the National Forest which is a swathe of newly planted woodland that cuts across middle England, linking up various so called community forests as it goes, from North Leicestershire to South Derbyshire and out to South East Staffordshire. You see signs for it that must confuse the hell out of visitors to the country travelling up and down the M1 faced with a relatively treeless landscape, who wonder where it is. Is your newly established forest part of that, kitty? Likewise the South Yorkshire Forest, for which there is a large sign at the top of my road. There are a few relatively small areas of “greening” of former mining sites and establishment of reed beds to improve ground water quality, and two nice country parks that predate the project, but I don’t know how much of this actually constitutes a forest in the strictest sense of the word. I read somewhere that one of the reasons for planting the Northern Forest is, in the long term, to provide biomass for energy use, in which case I hope that large swathes of it are not going to be fast growing conifers that don’t enhance the landscape.

That must’ve been posh furniture Harrigran you definitely don’t get that with a Billy bookcase from Ikea.

I like the idea though.

Surely Forests are about health. There is more and more evidence of the good effects that contact with and use of green spaces has on both the mental and physical health of those that experience them regularly. So investing in a new forest is as good for the nations health as investing in the NHS

And lethally dangerous too Durhamjen. Can you imagine this in any other part of the country? The A1 connecting England to Scotland a single track road? It has claimed many lives over the years with highly dangerous cross over points, farm traffic etc. But still it’s in the North so it doesn’t matter.

When we had new furniture fitted in our bedroom and study, the company sent us a certificate to say that they had donated a percentage of the cost which had purchased trees for the Woodland trust. I rather liked the idea that they had replaced the trees.

Nfk, part of the A1 hasn't yet been dualled, let alone a motorway. North of Alnwick it's like a country road, just like in Norfolk.
I remember when we moved down to Norfolk, in the seventies, asking a man where the place was we were looking for. He told us that the road widened, then narrowed again and it was just after that. We assumed he meant a dual carriageway, but he literally meant the road widened. Couldn't tell because it was December, in the dark, no lights.

If you want something else to make you smile, there's a petition on change.org to stop people putting bird spikes in trees!

Sorry but this is amusing, recently there was talk here about an English parliament bu those in the North seem to have a big problem with the South , two English parliaments ?

Like a green Hadrian's Wall, you mean, OldMeg?

The Woodland Trust gets money from people like you and me, Kitty. You can be a mamber, or just buy trees to commemorate certain events.
However, this is a bit more than that, and requires tax money.
I agree it should go to the NHS instead. However, it's only about half a million pounds. NHS needs a lot more than that.

www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2018/01/new-northern-forest/

I must admit your posts made me smile DJ & Kitty .

They conjured up a sort of modern Robin Hood situation where travellers from the south are held up and asked to hand over money to fund the ‘Northern Powerhouse’.

Flipping heck, dj! I understand it is actually a series of woods not a belt of trees and brambles designed to keep pesky northerns out of the way.

There is a newly established forest near us which is a huge benefit to lots of people in terms of employment and enjoyment.

There have been studies that prove 'nature' in all its forms is beneficial for lots of health problems.

I think it is to be funded by the Woodland Trust but I have no idea where their money comes from - no doubt someone will tell me - probably in no uncertain terms.

However the proposed ‘Northern Forest’ is greenwash, obscuring the government’s destruction of older trees: HS2 will destroy or damage 98 ancient woodlands, while Sherwood Forest is explored for fracking shale gas. With their uncontaminated soils and 400-year-old trees supporting thousands of species, ancient woods are irreplaceable, but it’s still deemed too expensive to, say, bore an HS2 tunnel under the bluebells of South Cubbington wood in Warwickshire.

This governments sudden claim to be interested in the environment, eg their ‘strategy’ on plastic waste, is hogwash too.

Only you would think of that DJ! I just thought it was pretty much the shortest route when it would make much more sense to bring it down to join to Thetford Forest! So now the north will have a Northern Forest AND and Great Northern Forest and you get motorways and statues and things. Even decent leisure centres with swimming pools!

Seriously, I think the money should go to the NHS for now and suspect this is just another announcement on a wish list which may or probably may not happen.

I agree with everything you and paddyann say, Eloethan.
I notice the Northern Forest is going to go from Hull to Liverpool; to divide North from South even more?

I thought that one of the woods I go to was part of the Great Northern Forest, a woodland trust wood.

I think both are important and, as paddyann said, HS2 should be abandoned and the money used for more constructive projects. Trident too, in my opinion, but I realise that a number of people feel differently.

I wonder how many people really think that HS2, which by all accounts will save a fairly insignificant amount of journey time from London to the Midlands and onwards, is worth the extraordinary environmental, social and economic cost.

or Trident or HS2 or any of the Tory vanity projects that billions are being wasted on ..but its not the tory way ...is it?

We can have both. Or let me reword that, as the 6th (?) largest economy in the world we ought to be able to have both.