Yeah it was a bucket on the front of the tractor that we used, with 3 of us we did 3 trailers full in about 2 hours. Distance to houses is the same for us parents is about 4 mile and my house about 16. My Uncle has offered to store to the next 3-4 load in one of his barns for me to collect, it'll take a few trips with a VW Bora so time to hire a van I reckon.

Wife and I are lucky enough to own a bit of wood which keeps us in logs. It wasn't managed for years so lots of dead blown timber that is keeping me busy clearing up. Hard work but lots of chainsaw action. Hopefully start planting next year, just need to live another 100 years to see the result!

rightplacerighttime – Yeah, it seems a pretty rare thing – I believe it started a 'commoners rights' which all but went out of use, but now carries on under a conservation banner that gives the local a supply of wood that would, otherwise just be burnt on-site (case in point – last years coop contained a lot of large poplars, 50yo+. Looked into selling them as they seemed too nice to burn. As it's not a commercial timber tree typical price per felled tree was 40p, so on the fire they went!). Even so, there is quite a lot of H+S/insurance etc to sort out before we're let loose and there are quite a few meetings to go to so everyone knows the management plan for the areas to be coppiced, is clear which 'standard' trees are to be maintained, which trees are to be removed completely (usually the non-natives to this woodland) and which are to be left as maiden's to be coppiced.

Having been doing it for a few years now, I've asked around my more immediate conservation groups if they'd like to set up something similar but either they don't have the area of woodland to make it sustainable on a reasonably long term basis or they go a whiter-shade-of-pale at the thought of 'the public' being let loose in a wood with a chainsaw into which other people might wander.