woodlands

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rich59

Maker
Aug 28, 2005
2,217
25
65
London
Thinking about the issue of buying woodland..... I think in essense it is simple (nothing really is of course)

1) Locate some land for sale
2) Find a group of like minded people willing to fork out
3) Buy said land

Stage one is about knowing the estate agents who deal in land
Stage two is about communication and agreeing on how to manage the sale and the land use after sale
Stage three is all about conveyencing

When it comes to a group owning land you might like to consider forming a "club" and appointing trustees who will act for the club in managing deeds and so on.

I would hope you would all avoid the situation I am in. I am a member of a club which owns land - an allotment site. The majority of the owners have grown old but want to sell the site for profit for building, and a lot of energy is going into fighting for and against planning permission.

A lesson to learn is to form the club with some good and very well thought out rules - including clear rules about what participation is required in order to remain a member of the club. Ideally one would agree to set it up in such a way that selling for profit is not an option.
 

JoshG

Nomad
Sep 23, 2005
270
1
36
Stockton-on-tees, England.
rich59 said:
Thinking about the issue of buying woodland..... I think in essense it is simple (nothing really is of course)

1) Locate some land for sale
2) Find a group of like minded people willing to fork out
3) Buy said land

Stage one is about knowing the estate agents who deal in land
Stage two is about communication and agreeing on how to manage the sale and the land use after sale
Stage three is all about conveyencing

When it comes to a group owning land you might like to consider forming a "club" and appointing trustees who will act for the club in managing deeds and so on.

I would hope you would all avoid the situation I am in. I am a member of a club which owns land - an allotment site. The majority of the owners have grown old but want to sell the site for profit for building, and a lot of energy is going into fighting for and against planning permission.

A lesson to learn is to form the club with some good and very well thought out rules - including clear rules about what participation is required in order to remain a member of the club. Ideally one would agree to set it up in such a way that selling for profit is not an option.

Good advice rich, cheers. :)
 

bilko

Settler
May 16, 2005
513
6
52
SE london
I have been thinking about this ever since the first thread. Now not wishing to sound stupid but what would you consider to be a good amount of land for 1 person's bushcraft purposes?
I was thinking about 5 acres but this posses problems in itself because unless it is in an isolated rural area i would think you want at least 5 acres depth of wood before the noise disepates and you start to feel like your in some woods.

So, bearing that in mind how big an area would you think suitable for say 20 people ( this to me would be the largest easily managable amount of people for a group buy ) without stumbling into each other all day long?

Access is a very important thing to look at too. If your wood is surrounded by other land you may not be allowed access without special permission from the other owners. I think the term used was "ransom curtain" where other land owners could charge you a premium for accessing your own land. Bear this in mind.

Why do i want to own a wood? For most of the year there are campsites open that will let me light fires and even have meetups with mates.
There are even vast forests where i can enjoy animals in their own habitat.
Would i use it?
How much can i afford?, well a thousand pounds works out at £2.74 per day for a year. £1500 works out at £4.11 per day for a year, the price of a pack of fags :)

How would i feel though if i turned up to this 100 acre wood to be told there are 15 other people in there at this time? would it make me feel consciuose of doing what i wanted? Will i ever get more than a bushcrafty campsite with someone always beating me to my favourite spot?
This is why i feel that it's important to have maximum investment per person and a minimal group. Imagine 10 football pitches empty. Now stick 20 people in there all dotted about. Not so private anymore but maybe that's not a bad thing.

meeting up with your new found friends under the communial kata. Having a beer and bannok at night. learning new skills for free from you mates. not having to book or reserve anything or having someone tell you to put that fire out. Putting your kit in your car on a friday morning and driving to the woods after work.
There are so many possitives but also so much else to think about. I realy hope us southerners can find a large area at a good price too :D

Didn't mean to sound negative btw, just that there realy is a lot of stuff to think about. :) can we borrow eric from time to time though? :lmao:
 

JoshG

Nomad
Sep 23, 2005
270
1
36
Stockton-on-tees, England.
bilko said:
I have been thinking about this ever since the first thread. Now not wishing to sound stupid but what would you consider to be a good amount of land for 1 person's bushcraft purposes?
I was thinking about 5 acres but this posses problems in itself because unless it is in an isolated rural area i would think you want at least 5 acres depth of wood before the noise disepates and you start to feel like your in some woods.

So, bearing that in mind how big an area would you think suitable for say 20 people ( this to me would be the largest easily managable amount of people for a group buy ) without stumbling into each other all day long?

Access is a very important thing to look at too. If your wood is surrounded by other land you may not be allowed access without special permission from the other owners. I think the term used was "ransom curtain" where other land owners could charge you a premium for accessing your own land. Bear this in mind.

Why do i want to own a wood? For most of the year there are campsites open that will let me light fires and even have meetups with mates.
There are even vast forests where i can enjoy animals in their own habitat.
Would i use it?
How much can i afford?, well a thousand pounds works out at £2.74 per day for a year. £1500 works out at £4.11 per day for a year, the price of a pack of fags :)

How would i feel though if i turned up to this 100 acre wood to be told there are 15 other people in there at this time? would it make me feel consciuose of doing what i wanted? Will i ever get more than a bushcrafty campsite with someone always beating me to my favourite spot?
This is why i feel that it's important to have maximum investment per person and a minimal group. Imagine 10 football pitches empty. Now stick 20 people in there all dotted about. Not so private anymore but maybe that's not a bad thing.

meeting up with your new found friends under the communial kata. Having a beer and bannok at night. learning new skills for free from you mates. not having to book or reserve anything or having someone tell you to put that fire out. Putting your kit in your car on a friday morning and driving to the woods after work.
There are so many possitives but also so much else to think about. I realy hope us southerners can find a large area at a good price too :D

Didn't mean to sound negative btw, just that there realy is a lot of stuff to think about. :) can we borrow eric from time to time though? :lmao:

Some good points there, but personally i'm really not at all fussed by the fact that other people would be there, infact i'd quite like to see folk who have contributed turning up and being able to chat to them etc... :)
 

Razorstrop

Nomad
Oct 1, 2005
314
6
North West
Bilko
Lots of good points well made as usual. However.....several things to take into account.
Personally bushcrafting on my own is no fun, so if a few people are there great.....thats the more social side of me coming out.
Also I might be building a shelter and someone wanders over and says you might want to try x y and z. The passing on of knowledge for free, the very essence of what this community is about.
And........I work spardoic shifts I hardly ever get the same days off in a month, so I might be visiting the woods on Tuesday and Wednesday, so theres every chance I might end up there all on my own or just with one or two others.
As for the financial commitment well I was looking at buying my own woods on my own, so if I had to and it was the right place for me I would find however much was needed.
I know you are not insinuating otherwise but just for the record, I and one or two others are deadly serious on this matter, it isnt just going to go away until I either own or am part owner of a wood near to me that I can have free reign of for my bushcrafting adventures.And I honestly hope that others in this community take the same stance and decide its what they need to do as well. Forgive my ignorance but some wise man said "In wildness is the preservation of the world" I beleive in that totally and want my own little bit of wildness.

Phew had to get that all out
Mr Strop
 

Eric_Methven

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Apr 20, 2005
3,600
42
73
Durham City, County Durham
Right then, lots of canny ideas being put forward. It seems everyone loves the idea but some of us doubt it will come off. This in part is due to past threads where nobody has taken the lead and gone beyond the talking stage, added to that the negative comments from some sceptics on the viability and legal wrangle killing the projects before they start.

So what's different with this thread? Nothing really, except Spoony and I are determined for it to work, and the more people joining us, the easier it will be for us. Also the fact that we're not just names on a forum any more. Many of the people in our geographic area have met us at the north meet and know we're more than a user name. It kind of personalises it a bit, and that can add to feeling more committed.

Let's sort out the why's and wherefore's at subsequent meetings and for now we'll focus on checking out the woods, and maybe looking at many others before we commit to anything.

I am also pleased to see interest from other areas as well. Tell you what I was thinking. Let's see where the north group (for want of a better description) gets to, and when (not if) we get our woodland plot we'll share with any other groups what we did and how we did it. Then you can adopt our strategy and buy your own.

I can see, maybe five years from now, lots of different woodlands all over the country, owned by bushcraft groups and protected from development for the forseeable future. I can also imagine each group member having free right to camp in his or her woodland, run courses and sub let parts of the woods to other interested parties. I can also invisage reciprocal rights between the groups, so if i fancied a week's holiday in Dartmoor for instance I can use the south west group's woodland and anyone from there can use ours. That opens up the whole country to bushcraft sites for all of us.

As I say, that's a good way down the road but it is doable. Also there's no reason any woodland purchased cannot make money from our activities. But first we have to meet and discuss this all. The first informal meeting is tomorrow afternoon.

Eric
 

JoshG

Nomad
Sep 23, 2005
270
1
36
Stockton-on-tees, England.
Eric_Methven said:
Right then, lots of canny ideas being put forward. It seems everyone loves the idea but some of us doubt it will come off. This in part is due to past threads where nobody has taken the lead and gone beyond the talking stage, added to that the negative comments from some sceptics on the viability and legal wrangle killing the projects before they start.

So what's different with this thread? Nothing really, except Spoony and I are determined for it to work, and the more people joining us, the easier it will be for us. Also the fact that we're not just names on a forum any more. Many of the people in our geographic area have met us at the north meet and know we're more than a user name. It kind of personalises it a bit, and that can add to feeling more committed.

Let's sort out the why's and wherefore's at subsequent meetings and for now we'll focus on checking out the woods, and maybe looking at many others before we commit to anything.

I am also pleased to see interest from other areas as well. Tell you what I was thinking. Let's see where the north group (for want of a better description) gets to, and when (not if) we get our woodland plot we'll share with any other groups what we did and how we did it. Then you can adopt our strategy and buy your own.

I can see, maybe five years from now, lots of different woodlands all over the country, owned by bushcraft groups and protected from development for the forseeable future. I can also imagine each group member having free right to camp in his or her woodland, run courses and sub let parts of the woods to other interested parties. I can also invisage reciprocal rights between the groups, so if i fancied a week's holiday in Dartmoor for instance I can use the south west group's woodland and anyone from there can use ours. That opens up the whole country to bushcraft sites for all of us.

As I say, that's a good way down the road but it is doable. Also there's no reason any woodland purchased cannot make money from our activities. But first we have to meet and discuss this all. The first informal meeting is tomorrow afternoon.

Eric

Sounds very good, Eric. :D
 

spoony

Need to contact Admin...
Oct 6, 2005
1,402
12
54
tyne and wear
www.bike2hike.co.uk
Just a note on the over crowding thing, fisher ground campsite is small very small, at the northern meet we shared this with the public, there was prob about 30 of BCUK there and not once did i feel we were triping over each others feet, i enjoyed the close group community.
 

running bare

Banned
Sep 28, 2005
382
1
63
jarrow,tyne & wear uk
the more the merrier. the middlebrough site with a 120 mile radius takes in edinburgh down to derby which is approx a conservative 2 hour drive. spoony ive emailed fisherground to find out the acreage of the campsite so that people that went to the northern meet will have some idea for comparison. will post the size when i get a reply.

tom :D
 

redflex

Need to contact Admin...
Everyone likes the idea of having woodland available for bushcraft, but I agree with others that it depends on area it is in,

Why dont we look at what is available and find support in that area, even if this ends up as several different groups.

No point raising money then looking for woondland to buy. as people end up with something they don't use or can't use.
 

Razorstrop

Nomad
Oct 1, 2005
314
6
North West
Redflex, I tihnk you missed the point slightly, you are right everyone does like the idea of owning some woodland, but we are going to be the people who actually take the step and do it.

Mr Strop
 

JoshG

Nomad
Sep 23, 2005
270
1
36
Stockton-on-tees, England.
Razorstrop said:
Redflex, I tihnk you missed the point slightly, you are right everyone does like the idea of owning some woodland, but we are going to be the people who actually take the step and do it.

Mr Strop
Yeah! We really need to get this going, and not let it just be a thread of folk dreaming of what might be :)
 

Stu Mac990

Member
Dec 20, 2003
22
0
45
Stanley, Co. Durham, UK
Just worked out an Acre would be about 63 Meters X 63 Meters if the area of wood was square,

So the Middlesbrough woodland would work out to about 210 Meters X 210 Meters

Think thats right :rolleyes:
 

JoshG

Nomad
Sep 23, 2005
270
1
36
Stockton-on-tees, England.
Stu Mac990 said:
Just worked out an Acre would be about 63 Meters X 63 Meters if the area of wood was square,

So the Middlesbrough woodland would work out to about 210 Meters X 210 Meters

Think thats right :rolleyes:
By the way if anybody wants me to check the middlesbrough place out for any reason I can do, it's literally a 10 minute drive from me. :)
 

Doc

Need to contact Admin...
Nov 29, 2003
2,109
10
Perthshire
Good luck guys; hope it comes off.

I was one of those who raised this in an earlier thread. It soon became clear that to carry it off required a time committment that I simply could not manage, given that I have a wife, three small children and a pretty demanding job.

It is entirely achievable though - it just requires time and committment. One thing I still recall from TA days is the first principle of war - which is selection and maintenance of the aim. Or as Thoreau put it, if you advance confidently in the direction of your dreams, you will astonish yourself.
 
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