Services

As part of our woodland management and coppice restoration we are often asked to advise on how to prevent deer damage to the re-growing trees. We now provide an active deer management service. This enables us to select the appropriate individuals to be removed from the local deer population. This means that the remaining deer population is left to graze the woodland as part of a balanced ecosystem and the woodland owner can benefit from the harvesting of a renewable, sustainable, organic source of food if they wish. Alternatively it can be viewed as a small additional revenue that can be used for other management activities.

In the absence of active or passive deer management a woodland can suffer from over grazing. This in turn leads to an aging collection of trees with no younger trees to replace them or other flora associated with a healthy woodland ecosytem.

The lack of a credible deer management plan will inhibit the successful application for grant aid from the Forestry Commission.

We follow current best practice laid down by the Deer Initiative (http://www.thedeerinitiative.co.uk),

We are trained, qualified and insured to a high nationally recognised standard. Our aim is to manage a deer population on a landscape scale, as deer may move through many different woodlands as part of their daily routine. To this end, we liaise with other deer managers in the local area, which helps to prevent too many deer being removed from any population.

We manage a range of woodland areas in South Lakeland. We focus on small woodland blocks that are better managed with specialist compact machines that are able to use the existing narrow access tracks. Our specialist machines are also able to work amongst standing trees without the need to cut access routes or damage the remaining trees and due to their size, have reduced day to day costs and lower transport to site costs, all of which enable us to work in smaller areas of woodland with lower value timber. The size and weight of our machinery also causes less damage the ground, thus reducing clear up and cost for the woodland owner. This leads to a quicker return to a natural appearance of the woodland environment.

All of the factors outline above mean that our method of working is suited to old coppice woodlands. There a very large number of woodlands in the south lakes area that were traditionally worked as coppice with standard woods. Unfortunately the majority of these have fallen out of management and are now overstood.

See the link below for more information on coppice woodlands.

http://www.coppice.co.uk

The increased demand for firewood has led to a growing market, which in turn has made these woodlands more likely to be a viable and profitable resource once more. Further more, when returned to rotational management, the benefits to the local wildlife can be considerable.

We are able to carry out all apsects of tree surgery work, from delicate hand pruning of fruit trees to shape them into a stable, productive, easy to crop trees, through to the removal of large dangerous diseased trees. In between, we can deal with the applications/paperwork required for Tree Preservation Order protected trees, as well as conservation area tree work.

All timber generated from this work is either added to the firewood stocks or left in a useable form for the householder to add it to their own firewood supply.

All our staff are NPTC qualified for the tasks they undertake, and all tasks are covered by up to £10,000,000 of insurance.