Confor and Woodland Trust make case for more forestry funding

The day after Chancellor Rachel Reeves presented her budget which will result in an additional £1.5bn being made available to the Scottish Government in 2024/25 and an additional £3.4bn in 2025/26, Confor and Woodland Trust Scotland (WTS) met with Cabinet Secretary Mairi Gougeon to press the case for some of that extra funding to be allocated to forestry.

“An extra £5-10m for forestry this year would be equivalent to less than two-thirds of one percent of the additional funding announced for Scotland in 2024/25”, said Confor CEO Stuart Goodall. “If that was made available quickly, and additional funding for 2025/26 announced in the December budget, then that could go a long way to addressing the serious drop in confidence the industry has felt since the announcement of the savage cut to the tree planting budget made last December.”

The Cabinet Secretary noted that the Scottish Government needed time to digest the details of the budget announcement but assured Confor that she understood the damaging impact to confidence that last year’s cut had had on the industry, and proposed that she, Confor and WTS keep in contact in the run up to the budget on 4^th December.

Confor also highlighted the importance of continued funding for the Scottish Timber Transport Scheme as it contributes positively to ensuring a sustainable timber supply to Scotland’s wood processing sector and acts as a catalyst for industry, local authorities and Scottish Forestry to work together to minimise the impact of timber haulage on fragile rural roads.