20 years ago I pleaded in Parliament against a Forestry Commission decision not to renew a tenancy near Holmsley, where it planned to sell the land. The result was the eviction of two households, the destruction of a renowned wildfowl reserve and the termination of a successful small business. Below, I have printed an extract from the parliamentary debate. I ended it with a rhetorical flourish, predicting the demolition of the properties and their replacement with palace fit for footballers’ wives. I was wrong. Walking my dog, I passed the site yesterday. There is no palace. Where there were two cottages and a magnificent landscape there is now a wasteland. Literally a wasteland, because remains of the demolition carried out well over a decade ago, have attracted fly- tippers into the very heart of the New Forest.
See it for yourself at Grid 221010 or what3words ///ringers.shifters.written
This devastation resulted from a decision by the Forestry Commission, I believe that Forestry England should now take responsibility to address it.
Hansard 24th July 2006 Column 713
“…I now come to a more pressing and imminent concern, and that is the disposal by the Forestry Commission of Holmsley lodge and Shrike cottage, together with 13 magnificent acres at the heart of the New Forest…. The current tenants have been told that they need to leave by January 2007… They have a business, they have nowhere to go and that they have been in those properties for 40 years….
As to the impracticality of those properties as family homes, tell that to the Landers, who have raised a family of five in Holmsley lodge, and to the Mays, who have raised a family of four in Shrike cottage. The irony is that those properties were previously not ‘practical family homes’: Shrike cottage had no kitchen, a leaking roof, rotten window frames and one open fireplace to heat the entire cottage, but that property has been transformed, as has Holmsley lodge, by the existing tenants. Perhaps this has contributed to such a gem being disposed of on the open market, rather than being secured for the long-term interests of the New Forest.
The Landers and the Mays have installed a vermin-proof fence around all 13 acres of magnificent landscape. They have built up a wild fowl business of national and international renown. It currently contains some 1,000 birds, many of which are endangered species….
At the beginning of the 20th century, the New Forest was much more than the heathland and woodland that it now comprises. It was a great national estate, which included farms, mansions, shops and businesses all under the Crown Estate. The Forestry Commission sold off many of those assets, until it was checked, partly by the Illingworth report in the mid-1980s. The question is whether that process has started again—I ask the Minister to consider his Mandate, the fundamental principle of which is the conservation of the natural and cultural heritage of the New Forest. Over the best part of the past half century, the Mays and the Landers and their wildfowl have become part of that cultural and natural heritage. The millionaires or footballers’ wives to whom these properties will be sold are unlikely to do so