Timber hubs and games

SCOPE:

A collaborative project working with Grown in Britain with the National Trust as the end client. The National Trust owns extensive forestry throughout the UK. Much of this has management plans but active management to increase resilience could be significantly improved. At the same time the Trust uses large volumes of timber in its operations. Could an increased use of its own timber bring its woodland into better management?

DELIVERY:

Delivery was centred on the set up of regional hubs that could take timber from woodland management operations at Trust properties, mill it, and manufacture it into usable products for use back on the Trust properties.

The South West and North West were used as initial testing grounds. GIS analysis was used to match national forest inventory, trust management plans and ground based surveys to understand potential supply. Demand was assessed through access to the Trust property management systems and people. From these supply and demand details cash-flows were developed for a number of models including in-house sawing, tenant sawing, and third-party mills acting as the hub.

In parallel to this work a gap was perceived in the knowledge of staff to complete silvicultural operations. A digital gaming platform is currently under development to help train staff and assess attitudes to woodland management.

COLLABORATORS:

Grown in Britain, University of Glasgow, University of Surrey