Our Services
Delivering Control to our Woodland Owners
Our managers will provide you with complete visibility of the costs and incomes. We can organise felling permission and obtain an optional fixed-price quotation for replanting. Timber prices have soared in the last few years with the importance of sustainable forestry for construction and biofuel production a key topic of government. The returns are now encouraging woodland owners to thin and harvest areas which were previously considered unviable on account of higher working costs or replanting costs.
Many owners choose to sell the timber standing, to the highest bidder. Often however the highest bidder will also be the operator with the lowest costs, and this can be an area of concern. There is no control over who is working on the property and felled volumes will not be known until many weeks after the timber has been removed.
Through the consolidation of the DWP members timber volume and continuity of work there is greater assurance that the contractors will undertake the works to the highest standard. This in turn allows members forest managers to consider woodland certification with the standard of harvesting work already adhering to the expectations of the UK Woodland Assurance Standard.
The DWP managers oversee works including the creation of the timber income budget, the operational supervision, the members self billing and associated contractor and customer invoicing, as well as the undertaking of the society’s chain of custody audits for certification.
The agricultural sector has long since developed the optimum balance between returns and control – cooperatives.
All of the profit from the operations is returned to owners.
DWP’s primary harvesting contractor boasts three harvesting units and three accompanying forwarding units ranging from smaller scale to larger scale machines suited to an array of woodland operations. These machines are all replaced on a three year rotation to ensure that greater production while ensuring lesser ground damage can be achieved, which in turn keeps harvesting rates competitive for the Society’s Members.