Towpath Forest-missed opportunity

[Greg Klaes]

Why did BWB and now CRT not collect the wood from Towpath cuttings and sell it as firewood to raise money? Why do they allow it to be stolen when it is a valuable resource that should earn it's keep? Diseased wood could be turned into charcoal and sold again to raise funds.

[GoodGurl]

They leave it for boaters to use because they are very thoughtful

[Pluto]

Probably because it would cost too much for them to collect and sell, so would be a drain on their funding. If they agreed that boaters could use it, some one would soon claim compensation for an injury received during cutting the timber. While it would be nice for the wood to be sold, current economic and legal restraints would make it difficult.

[magnetman]

Don't think freshly felled wood is worth much. Cutting,transporting,seasoning,packing, marketing etc

[rasputin]

Why did BWB and now CRT not collect the wood from Towpath cuttings and sell it as firewood to raise money? Why do they allow it to be stolen when it is a valuable resource that should earn it's keep? Diseased wood could be turned into charcoal and sold again to raise funds.

 

Lol have you done any financial analysis for that brilliant business plan.

 

It is difficult to make retail-able charcoal from rotten wood

[onionbargee]

They could sell the logs, current rate for unseasoned split logs would be £40/ 60 per cu m. but most towpath locations have no vehicle access so they would have to use time and effort they don't have, CRT is basically a skeleton staff with limited resources, it probably would not make any profit.

[b0atman]

So CRT set up another offshoot department ?

Head of timber department Salary £80k

Personal assistant Salary £40k

secretary £25

area managers + admin staff

offices

transport

A man to do the work minimum wage.

the list goes on and on .

[junior]

So CRT set up another offshoot department ?

Head of timber department Salary £80k

Personal assistant Salary £40k

secretary £25

area managers + admin staff

offices

transport

A man to do the work minimum wage.

the list goes on and on .

Add to that the 'Wood Collection Partnership' and the 'Log selling Sub-group' and you're getting close to the CRT business model.

[boathunter]

So CRT set up another offshoot department ?

Head of timber department Salary £80k

Personal assistant Salary £40k

secretary £25

area managers + admin staff

offices

transport

A man to do the work minimum wage.

the list goes on and on .

 

I think you mean a man to try and do the work on minimum wage while the above find reasons for him to wait until the job is twice as hard, but still allow the same time to do it.

[the barnacle]

wood can cost more to work with than you can make by selling it. but at least its better to contribute to a cost than not to.

[andyb116]

Came through woodseeves cutting earlier this year, contractors cutting down all the dead and falling trees from the top of the cutting, had a chipper and two flats to catch the chippings, the whole towpath was full of neatly cut log piles, they stopped us and asked us if we had a log burner and would we please help ourselves to as many logs as we could carry as they could not cope with the amount that needed chipping and shifting. Could of gone down there with a working pair at least 10 times and not made much of a dent in what was there.

[GoodGurl]

Came through woodseeves cutting earlier this year, contractors cutting down all the dead and falling trees from the top of the cutting, had a chipper and two flats to catch the chippings, the whole towpath was full of neatly cut log piles, they stopped us and asked us if we had a log burner and would we please help ourselves to as many logs as we could carry as they could not cope with the amount that needed chipping and shifting. Could of gone down there with a working pair at least 10 times and not made much of a dent in what was there.

Now that's a missed opportunity if ever i saw one

[tree monkey]

ok so shall we have a look at this then.

 

the timber will need to be

felled

over 5 cubic metres of timber will require a felling licence

plus there will be TPO and Conservation area issues to take in account

most areas will require some sort towpath access controls whilst the work is being undertaken

 

extracted

most towpaths will not take serious machinery so most extraction will be by hand and or boat

again whilst this work is being undertaken towpath access controls will be required

 

stored in a dry location for at least 2 years

ideally some sort of open sided type barn, either one central location or many smaller yards spread around the system

 

spilt and bagged

this will need some serious investment in professional processing kit, there is no real way a bloke with a maul can do this and produce enough

this then follows on from how many yards, each yard will require its own set of kit

 

delivered to point of sale

how will this be sold, from limited locations, such as the remaining BW yards which will require point of sale staff, plus equipment to load anything more than the small Yuppie net bags, or dedicated delivery teams?

 

 

there would be massive set up costs, plus i would suggest there just isnt enough CRT owned trees to make it viable

[andyb116]

Tree monkey, nice to hear the official stand point on this, but my observation of the situation at woodseeves cutting was that the contractors had been thrown into a position that on the tree felling side they were comfortable with, but due to the narrow cutting and canal and lack of equipment to shift the waste they were struggling.

[tree monkey]

Tree monkey, nice to hear the official stand point on this, but my observation of the situation at woodseeves cutting was that the contractors had been thrown into a position that on the tree felling side they were comfortable with, but due to the narrow cutting and canal and lack of equipment to shift the waste they were struggling.

Official nahhh only my opinion

the canal has a set of very specific issues, woodseeves being a case in point, i could get the kit in to fell and extract all the timber in that location and have the whole site cleared in a couple of weeks, but it would be expensive and almost certainly cost more than the value of the timber, it just is not worth it and certainly not worth it just to clear the odd tree here and there

[Sea Dog]

Whether it's the case here or not I have no idea, but it's a common woodland maintenance policy to leave felled wood where it falls for the good it does for the woodland itself. It creates a habitat for fungii, plants, and invertibrates as well as larger animal life. Once you know that's a policy, you'll see evidence of it all over the place.

[andyb116]

Have to agree, but from an observation piont of view, it was 4 men, (one man on a rope with a chainsaw working from the top) 3 men processing the downfall, who were struggling to cope, and it was a total clearance, surely some money could of been recovered from the waste. But as I work for the dark side, I know how this works

[magnetman]

Ecopiles

Not a medical condition

[tree monkey]

Whether it's the case here or not I have no idea, but it's a common woodland maintenance policy to leave felled wood where it falls for the good it does for the woodland itself. It creates a habitat for fungii, plants, and invertibrates as well as larger animal life. Once you know that's a policy, you'll see evidence of it all over the place.

i would suggest that its a policy of convenience here, if the timber had some real value based of removal and processing costs, i am sure it would be done

 

Overall though yes in a woodland managed for conservation, it is good practice to maintain deadwood,fallen and standing

Have to agree, but from an observation piont of view, it was 4 men, (one man on a rope with a chainsaw working from the top) 3 men processing the downfall, who were struggling to cope, and it was a total clearance, surely some money could of been recovered from the waste. But as I work for the dark side, I know how this works

honestly when considering the amount of input costs involved in the end product it would hardly be worth it, i am talking about firewood here, as it happens i am familiar with the trees at woodseeves and i would be very surprised if there was anything worth harvesting for timber

[rasputin]

The best, most cost effective, system is in place.

 

Chop to manageable sized pieces and leave on the canal side.

 

Waste is disposed off, boaters get free fuel.

 

Win win, long may it continue.

[andyb116]

As I don't know the costs involved in this sort of work ( the time involved in just the paperwork is probably frightening) I bow to your superior knowledge, and yes what was being produced could only be used for firewood.

[MtB]

As I don't know the costs involved in this sort of work ( the time involved in just the paperwork is probably frightening) I bow to your superior knowledge, and yes what was being produced could only be used for firewood.

 

 

Scrap timber can also be used to produce wood gas for fuel, in addition to the usual heat from burning it.. A very interesting and intriguing project here:

 

http://zennorphoenix.org.uk/

 

 

MtB

[tree monkey]

 

 

Scrap timber can also be used to produce wood gas for fuel, in addition to the usual heat from burning it.. A very interesting and intriguing project here:

 

http://zennorphoenix.org.uk/

 

 

MtB

i actually think we are missing a trick tbh, with a long term approach we could use this sort of tech for biomass power production, using the motoway plantations and i suppose canals could provide some input, these areas are managed and in the case of motoways access is a simple.

 

i have been banging on about this for ages, most of my colleagues just raise their eyebrows now

[The Pipe]

There is nothing new under the sun.

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/01/wood-gas-cars.html

Before my time but loads of them about in WW2.

[zenataomm]

My old dad used to laugh at these kind of suggestions and would refer to The Groundnut Scheme 1946 - 1951.

His favourite example being the buying and transporting of several steam powered cranes to uproot trees and clear the land.

 

He reveled in the outcome that they burnt trees quicker than they could fell them.

Necessitating in the need to import coal into Tanganyka.