5th September 2018

Forestry on the Windsor estate. John Deakin Chief Forester.

John Deakin from the Crown Estate gave an extremely insightful and interesting presentation to the LHC on 5^th September 2018, covering all aspects of the management of the Crown Estate, and their forestry management.

It’s important to note that John works for the Crown estate and not the Queen, although he does communicate directly with some of the Royal family.  The Crown estate is unusual in that it is not a private nor a public company.  Established in 1760 it maintains large areas of land and is partly a commercial property company, generating £ 330m profit from £ 14b, of which all profit goes back to government.  They own all sorts of property, land and some sea beds around the UK (think wind farms), 200,000 acres of rural land, although Scotland has been devolved

Windsor is managed estate with 180 staff , with the D of E in charge of park and 3 senior royals on the estate.  There is 3274h of land to be managed at Windsor and 12000 tonnes timber produced PA, using Silviculture which is the practice of controlling the establishment, growth, composition health and quality of natural resources associated with and developed from forest lands

The primary objectives for John and his team;

Economic sustainability

Biological sustainability

Increased forest resilience

Public access

And finally, managing all the above in harmony !  which involves a 150 year management plan,GPS mapping, a felling plan, which produces the action plan and a diversity of species mix (90% Scots pine)

The Estate has less broadleaf species, mostly dictated by soil type, of which there are many on the estate.  Windsor is also home to the oldest oak tree in the world, est 1350years

There are many other  activities on the Estate which generate income;

Biomass

Firewood

Filming

Christmas trees

Forest school

Wildlife trust

Charity events

Following his presentation John fielded a high number of questions from a clearly engaged audience to round off another informative and interesting LHC lunch meeting

Companies Present