WE may congratulate our- selves on winning a battle to save our Forest from being sold off, but the war carries on. The Government has, since December 2010, stealthily sold off 44 woodland sites totalling 4,000 acres and 20 more sales are awaiting completion before April. There have been no consultations or safeguards.

The Forestry Commission sold them via a firm of chartered surveyors John Clegg & Co, through regular email to a private list of investors. The first many local communities knew about this was when they encountered new fencing and locked gates. In a few cases where the impending sale leaked out and local people and organisations tried to bid, they found it was too late. In one case the woodland was sold for £1,800 an acre but the new owners have already split this into 14 smaller lots which are currently advertised at £9,000 an acre.

I do not know whether Mark Harper MP knew this was going on when he was assuring us that we would have a say over the future of our Forest. The title "Heritage Forest" is meaningless. We won because of the strength of public opposition here and a national petition carrying half a million signatures.

The main casualty is Mark Harper MP. Ten policemen were called to the meeting with his constituents on a cold night timed to coincide with the England versus Wales rugby international in a hall which could only seat 100. I have never once seen 10 uniformed policemen all together in the Forest in 30 years. Who paid for their overtime? But his constituents have lost too. Mark may have made his escape in a police van, but who is going to take up with him any other local issue which as an MP and a junior minister he is in a position to get at least an answer from his colleagues? He is discredited.

So, unfortunately is the Forestry Commission. which is probably the oldest quango in the country. created to boost timber production, especially of pit props after the depredations of a war in which shipping had higher priorities. Its record on conservation is dismal. The famed Westonbirt Arboretum across the river was once saved by a single vote when referred to the Commission. I know a retired Forester who did himself no good by declining to kill red squirrels in the Thetford Forest on their orders. Just a couple of instances of the Commissioners, located in Edinburgh, contempt of anything except of making money at the expense of the countryside.

A National Forestry service does need a national body at the helm. However, the system should be reformed.

New members of the Commission should be invited, like Oliver Rackham, the most respected name in woodland management or Jonathan Porritt who has fought so hard to save our ancient forests and representatives of the Woodland Trust. as well as the necessary business types to negotiate with the Treasury and control the finances.

But, there must be a degree of local control. For the first time the West Dean Parish Council was, in November, asked to comment on the proposed management plan for a large chunk of Forest South which it represents. As councillors we expressed our approval after discussion. This was followed by a meeting with Kevin Stannard, the deputy surveyor, which was harmonious and informative.

This I suggest should be the standard procedure and similar to the treatment of planning applications. If there was a disagreement the matter could be referred to the Verderers after being granted new executive powers and provided with the services and advice of officers already in place with district and county councils. The reformed Forestry Commission would then be a body of last resort and charged with formulating guidelines and woodland policy. as they already seek to do, through their brochure the "Keepers of Time" in which bio-diversity is advocated alongside the selective extraction of timber.

At present the Forestry Commissioners have been reduced to flogging off its estate at the behest of Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman, whose main qualification is as an expert on sugar beet from her time as an employee of the National Farmers' Union. We do need capable concerned people at the top but also guided democratic control by the communities concerned. To fill the financial hole there are better ways, such as preventing corporations avoiding their taxes of scores, perhaps hundreds, of billions of pounds. Spare our ancient forests which refresh the soul.

Roger Horsfield

Bream