THE HOOF campaign is reverberating down the corridors of power, a Forest delegation was told.

Only one peer besides Baroness Jan Royall of Blaisdon was available to meet the Forest of Dean District Council-led delegation to the House of Lords on Monday, due to peers facing all-night sittings.

Lords have been forced to put the Public Bodies Bill on the backburner, in order to debate a proposed referendum to change the MPs' voting system. This means a debate to vote to secure an exemption for the Forest of Dean from sale is unlikely to happen until Tuesday at the earliest.

Baroness Royall has called for special protection to be given to the statutory Forest of Dean and Highmeadow, Clearwell and Hope Woods, and also a separate motion to protect the 1,000-acre Dymock Forest, which contains rare daffodils and sessile oaks.

Lord Anthony Greaves, Liberal Democrat co-chair of the backbench environment committee said he was mustering support among Lib Dem peers to support Baroness Royall's amendments, and against the forestry clauses in the Bill.

But he urged the delegation to consider seriously a proposition to transfer the Forest to a trust and not to dismiss it out of hand.

Lord Greaves advised: "We can argue very easily what a bad thing it would be if it was sold off to an international corporation. But to counter the argument that a charity-based or trust-based model with a lot of local involvement would be a suitable model, you will need some pretty good arguments."

Lord Greaves said he believed that small forests could successfully be run by community organisations, but it wouldn't work for large forests such as the Dean, and the Forestry Commission needed to manage forests to do research.

Lord Greaves added: "As part of the Coalition we have to give broad support to the Government. But we don't have to say we agree with the Government on this issue.

"They are wrong and they have to change their mind. Liberal Democrats are all being lobbied successfully and intensively by you sending letters and emails."

Later, during a lunch with the shadow environment secretary Mary Creagh, HOOF campaigners were urged to forge links with groups fighting a sell-off at Cannock Chase, Sherwood, Thetford, Haldon and the New Forests, and Lake District woodlands to make a national impact.

She said changing the Forestry Commission's role would "destabilise the future of the Forest of Dean".

Following Hands off our Forest's rally, The Guardian, Daily Mirror, Independent, Sunday Times, Church Times, the BBC and ITV have all run stories.

BBC Countryfile was filming this week in the Forest, and is set to broadcast an investigation by John Craven on January 30.

Viscount Bledisloe, Rupert Bathurst, said: "To maintain the status quo and to gain an exemption is the only way forward.

"I believe that in the corridors of power there are enough people aware of that to vote for the exemption in the Bill."