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Evening...
Driving up the m3 the other day I saw some woods for sale, now at a price of 10k per acre or more it's a bit (waaaaaaay) to rich for me. So I got to thinking, does anyone rent woodland? Could I, say for a nominal fee/ barter, go and use a woodland for the purpose of a bit of bushcraft and rough camping? Anyone have any experience of this? Have used some googlefoo and not found anything
Cheers
If you fancy Leicestershire, we've got a 5 acre field doing nowt you can rough camp on.
Edit, there's not many trees on it.
Was thinking slightly closer to home... North hands. Big thanks for the offer tho.
Not sure about renting but maybe club together with some mates to buy one?
its not really financially practicle .... None of us have that kind of cash.
£10K an acre not far from the m3 doesn't sound bad at all. Was that an auction guide price, if so it'll likely sell for a lot more. If that is above budget then maybe look further from London. That said surely the point of wild camping is you just go and do it then move on. No one ever knows you were there. Why pay rent for that? If you want to be legit chat to friendly farmers.
It's more about having something I can get to know, not have to worry about grumpy game keepers and farmers kicking off, which I have come across before!
Buy a large plot and sub-divide it up. How much do you need? (Just one acre would be fine for camping.)
Plenty of folk seem to do that in the new forest
they seem pretty rich though - almost always dropped off by helicopter late evening
I used to rent a woodland plot, great memories camping with my kids, watching badgers and foxes playing on foggy sunrises, learning basic bushcraft, fishing, cooking and tree and plant management.
The farmer I rented it off passed away and the new owner had other plans, so sadly had to give it up.
Cost me a bottle of whiskey and a few hundred pounds a year, but the amount of wood and food I used to grow there easliy paid for itself.
Plus a place you could go to get away from everything and just chill.
Tip, if you do rent, get it in writing and not a handshake 😉
Richmars I just don't have that cash available. Just setting up a business so it's kind of all taken there. I'm just thinking out loud atm
Ski... That's exactly the kind of thing I'm after
Best off keeping an eye on agri' auctions or approaching land owners. Woods tend to be long term crops/investments, but farms can get broken up when sold and farms tend to see woods as a hindrance.
Edit: or approach land agents, Smiths Gore, Pryor Rickett and the like.
While potentially good for recreational use, a bit of woodland off the M3 is prime residential property land if they can get the land use permission for it. Chances are they will, even if it's green belt, given the current obsession with "lack of housing", aka "not enough housing for middle class Britain to purchase" rather than not enough property to actually live in.
I know all about that deadkenny almost all of the recent developments where I live have been green belt, not brownfield . To nearly the tune of 15000 houses!! :8
£10K an acre not far from the m3 doesn't sound bad at all. Was that an auction guide price
Sounds like woodlands.co.uk, that seems to be their standard price for something that's been parcelled up into one acre plots for lifestyle woodland, but so heavily caveated that you can't do much with it, and it's too small and impractical to manage as as woodland 'proper'
As above it costs money to own woodland as it really has to be managed, as such rental cost should be minimal. OP if all you are interested in is wild camping etc I would say just find a quiet spot and get on with it. Obviously bushcraft etc is a bit more difficult.
Most small plots of woodland are 2-4 acres, and the the thigs you can't do aren't unreasonable.
In my experience, 2-3 acres is plenty large enough for 'lifestyle woodland' given you only have a few hours a week to do anything.
OP, what about joining something like the woodland trust, and doing volunteer work for them? They may let you camp in return.
Not a bad idea. Just emailed the small woodlands group so will see what they come up with...
Glad it's not just me that sees the issues with woodlands.co.uk, whilst I may not want to commercially manage one of their bits of woodland cast-off, their covenants even limit good woodland management.
And they charge at least twice the going rate generally.
Having done a bit of looking, they have been slated quite badly in the press... Quite rightly by the sounds of it too