Forestry Commission Wales wants to hear its customers’ views on the way it sells timber.
FC Wales produces 770,000m³ obs (over bark standing) of timber annually from the 126,000ha Welsh Assembly woodland estate it manages and it wants to hear from its customers and timber trade representative bodies on its revised marketing strategy.
The strategy, which coincides with strengthening demand for timber, will cover the period April 1, 2011 to March 31, 2016, and will ensure that the sale of timber supports the objectives set out in Woodlands for Wales, the Assembly’s woodland strategy.
Woodlands for Wales recognises the need to maintain the production level of sustainable timber to support woodland-related enterprises, create jobs and encourage the use of more Welsh-grown timber in Wales in order to reduce the country’s carbon footprint.
FC Wales’s objectives in selling timber are to secure the best value; to offer timber to the market in ways that allow the greatest practicable number of customers to compete for it, and in ways that recognise their business needs and the potential to add value; to offer timber in ways that support the whole supply chain; and to offer timber in ways that encourage its use to best effect to reduce Wales’s carbon footprint.
FC Wales will continue to sell timber mainly on the open market through its e-sales system and will maintain its mix of standing and roadside sales.
The closing date for views on the strategy is November 19 and comments should be sent to Claire Evans at claire.evans@forestry.gsi.gov.uk
The revised strategy will be launched to FC Wales’s timber customers at the annual trade liaison meeting on January 27, 2011.
