Forests

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimate he has made of the area of commercial woodland and forestry in England that is owned by (a) Forest Enterprise and (b) private landowners and public limited companies. (291914)

The information is not held in that format by the Forestry Commission. The “National Inventory of Woodland and Trees” published in 2001 included information on ownership type for woodland areas of 2.0 hectares or more. This is given in the following table.

Ownership type	Area (hectares)
Personal	480,794
Business	146,601
Forestry or timber business	7,200
Charity	68,484
Local authority	61,098
Other public (not Forestry Commission)	27,302
Forestry Commission	222,694
Community ownership or common land	3,732
Unidentified	3,917
Total	1,021,822

Volume 497: debated on Wednesday 14 October 2009