I NOTE with interest your recently launched Hands Off Our Forest campaign, and was delighted that the latest edition (November 11) contains some of the important facts and figures regarding the Dean.

As has been indicated, we appear to be facing a re-run of the 1993 proposals on Forest Privatisation, and one would have hoped that in the time that is available further facts can be obtained to again counter the proposals.

In 1993, as treasurer of a sports governing body in Wales, I was asked to prepare and then submit that body's objections to the proposals and the reasons why we felt the proposals as then submitted would be unworkable and affect the financial viability of rural areas of Wales. In doing so, I was conscious of the battle then going on to protect the Forest of Dean, and copied the then MP, Paul Marland and the Senior Verderer Dr Cyril Hart with our submission, and the notes of a three-hour meeting we had with then the Permanent Secretary of the Welsh Office.

In preparing the submission, I was able to draw upon my experiences from being born and bred in the Forest of Dean. I was also conscious of advice gained from my father in his various battles with Whitehall, that while politicians may appear influenced by petitions, their civil servants want facts and figures to persuade them to change a view on a matter.

It should be remembered that if the 1993 proposals had proceeded , even if an exemption had been obtained for the Dean, it would have still had a significant impact upon the area, as a result of the potential sale of Chepstow Park and other Welsh controlled Wye Valley Forest blocks.

That threat, I feel, cannot again be ignored.

Having been involved with the Wyedean Stages Rally from its inception, I was able to draw upon the financial benefit which it could be shown it and similar events have on the revenue of areas such as the Dean, through the additional income for hotels and guest houses, as a result of teams and spectators overnight stays and the boosted sales in pubs and restaurants and shops over the weekend of the event. Something, which when the Wyedean Tourist Board operated we were readily able to establish, because of a close relationship with them.

Likewise, organisations in the Dean have benefited to the extent of more than £120,000 from car park revenues, even after paying the Forestry Commission their share. Our initial planning of the event Spectator signage was based upon a Stationery Office publication which included a Survey undertaken I recall by the University of Bristol into the routes used and journey start and finish points of visitors to the Dean in the late 1950's or early 1960's. The only such survey I am aware having been conducted. An updated survey would I believe dispel any suggestion that the financing of the acquisition of the Dean or any subsidy for its continued existence should fall upon the ratepayers of the Dean, as appears to be being suggested in some quarters. It would I believe show the wide area from which visitors travel to enjoy the scenery and to partake in activities such as mountain bike riding etc, and who should as now contribute to the overall operation of the Forestry Commission and the Dean.

Any sale was in 1993, and is now, likely to be based upon sale of individual or groups of forest blocks, in much the same way as the Forestry Commission sell the standing timber now, by a combination of auction and tender. Indeed, it will be interesting to see on the Forestry Commission website shortly how the sales conducted last week went, and the prices achieved.

Reference to it shows that at previous sales this year several blocks of timber within the Dean were unsold.

If this were to be repeated with a potential sale of Forest blocks, then we could find activities such as the Wyedean jeopardised because vital blocks for a contiguous event are no longer available, and this could be if the sale of blocks on the Welsh side proceeded.

Likewise sales of blocks on the Welsh side would affect the viability of the Wye Valley AONB, as while some changes have been effected by the introduction of CROW(Countryside Right of Way) legislation, a number of access agreements within Forest blocks are permissive, and these could be affected by a change of owner.

Similarly, while the licensing of timber felling could continue to be monitored by the Forestry Commission or some similar body, the control over when contractors operated would be lost, and one could foresee a scenario where independent owners arranged for felling at times when normally visitor numbers may be high, purely to benefit from good weather and availability of contractors.

If a scenario saw the Statutory Forest protected, blocks such as Highmeadow and others which are not part of the Statutory Forest could still be at risk of being sold off. This would probably not produce any significant saving in terms of staff etc, as those of us who have dealt regularly with the Commission over the past 40 years have seen that since 1993, much work previously done "in-house" has been contracted out, and when one considers that the staff in Coleford cover an area extending to below Bristol and over to Savernake, we have seen significant reductions in staff and costs over that period. Any sales would however as indicated earlier risk the free flow of events and activities if private owners withdrew "permissive" rights currently allowed by the Forestry Commission over various forest blocks.

In the past 40 years, I believe we have seen the Commission slim down. In my Motorsport capacity I used to be responsible for Forestry Liaison over a wide area of the Dean and West Midlands. The Forest offices at Ludlow, Wyre and also many in Wales have either shut or are now operated by far fewer staff. Indeed the last meeting I attended with colleagues and Forestry Commission staff from all over England was held not in plush Forestry Commission offices, but in a serviced room in the centre of Birmingham, enabling the vast majority of those present to travel by train , reducing the Forestry Commission and our expenses, with no mileage allowances and car parking in Birmingham to be claimed.

I would urge those in positions of power and influence in the Forest to use the time available and Freedom of Information legislation to obtain the facts and figures to amplify in detail the points I have raised, and others which are pertinent to ensure another successful campaign to preserve the Dean and its heritage.

FJ Gillo