I've avoided commenting on this so far as I've been out of the loop for a while, however I'm still in touch with a lot of guys around the country from my IMBA days now that I'm working in the bike trade.
I've heard more and more stories of difficulties, which seem to come round to an increasing level of i) micromanagement and ii) red tape, often down to CYA management styles with which the civil service is so endeared.
The Forestry commission seems, over the nineteen years I've been exposed to it (from doing my YTS there in '90) to have fallen over completely from an organisation which was primarily a timber growing company, with experienced foresters running local beats and a staff focused around the needs of the forestry operations, to an organisation which is primarily a contract management team with hundreds of 'hangers on' justifying their own jobs through paperwork and red tape.
The problems that we see for trailbuilders need to be seen in that light!
Once upon a time, Foresters were "working people" who went to agricultural college, did a BTEC ND sandwich course which involved a year working in the industry, and most of their learning was practical stuff like how best to grow, measure, and fell trees, a couple of years later, the sandwich part was taken out and it turned into an HND, then shortly afterward it became a degree course with no real practical experience, all book learning and pushing paperwork about - a lot of the "new" foresters I've met have never felled a tree, thats a big problem, the same goes for the civil engineers, who used to come up through the ranks and knew about drainage and road building from experience, rather than just writing a job spec for a local contractor to do the job.
So, if the people running the show only know how to run a contract, and being civil servants are preoccupied with covering their arse in the process, then they end up treating volunteers just like any other contractor, but free (in fact, I recall a recent advert for an FC post that referred to volunteer groups as "free labour").
This has been made worse by the existence of "professional trailbuilders" (not a dig against them personally) in the fact that they provide a 'shake and bake' solution for the site manager - OK we want trails, then we get in a trailbuilding company that design and build trails to standard trail specs all over the country for a fixed price and we don't have to worry about it - so we end up with all the individuality of the trail and the locally invented solutions to problems being replaced with a chain store trail (all the same design wherever you are).
the solution for the local FC guy becomes, I can put months of effort into supporting these local guys, and helping them through the process by keeping the paperwork monster at head office off their backs, and in the process expose myself - or get some capital funding and 'shake and bake' the solution meaning I don't have to do anything, the contractor's got all the tickets and risk assessments done already, nice and easy.
Such a shame! once upon a time working for the commission was fun - going round in a van at night looking for poachers, (not allowed anymore, H&S) felling your own Xmas trees (tut tut) cadging rides, four people in the cab of a forwarder (some chance now) building high seats without having to put a silly "no unauthorised persons" label on them... jumpers for goalposts etc.
