Guidance

Planning new woodland - Section 3: Developing your woodland creation plan

Updated 10 December 2024

Applies to England

• Publication for Northern Ireland
• Publication for Scotland
• Publication for Wales

Back to Section 2: Preparing to plan (scoping and survey).

Developing your woodland creation plan: analysis and synthesis

The woodland creation design process

1. Surveys	2. Analysis	3. Synthesis	4. Stakeholder engagement	5. Finalising the plan	6. Grant funding or standalone EIA approval
What you need to think about	landscape context plan, survey findings, issues log, KFS forest design principles	management objectives, site appraisal plan, landscape character appraisal, issues log UKFS forest design principles	issues log, design concept plan(s), supporting photographs and drawings (sections, perspectives)	issues log, now containing all stakeholder feedback and other considerations from the end-to-end process	funding/approval
What you need to do	evaluate all survey findings and divide the site into characteristic zones	bring together all of the above, to produce options for stakeholders to review	ask for specific feedback from your stakeholders, so they can tailor their responses to your proposal and their knowledge base	evaluate stakeholder feedback and integrate it into your final woodland creation design plan	funding/approval
What you need to produce	site appraisal plan, supporting annotated photos, updated issues log and landscape character appraisal	one or more design concept plans, supported by annotated photos and drawings (sections and perspectives) and updated issues log and landscape character appraisal	updated issues log	annotated spatial plan showing the final design concept, with specific detail added (for example on species mix, planting density, access routes and open ground)	funding/approval

Once you have established your management objectives, considered the site’s landscape context, features and sensitivity, and undertaken surveys, you are ready to progress to the analysis and synthesis stages of the process.

The contents of your plan

Your woodland creation plan should include the following:

• landscape context plan: a map showing and analysing the context of the site within the wider landscape
• site appraisal plan: a spatial plan with annotation and zones, showing how you have used information about the site to make your decisions. Very large sites may require more than one of these to show the necessary scale and detail
• design concept plan: an annotated spatial plan showing options for your woodland design, to support your engagement with stakeholders. You may need to produce more than one of these to aid stakeholder engagement, if appropriate
• final woodland creation design plan: a spatial plan showing your selected design option for the woodland including detailed design of key areas
• an accompanying written document that details your management objectives, a description of the site, survey information and analysis, your proposals for mitigating any negative impacts of creating woodland, what you found out by engaging with stakeholders, and an outline of how the young trees will be managed (planted and tended to ensure establishment)

These outputs are described in detail later in this section and examples can be found in Appendix 1. Your issues log and any other relevant outputs should also be appended to your plan.

You should provide concise descriptions and a clear rationale for your decisions. Good use of tables, charts, spatial plans, and visualisations will reduce the need for long text explanations. Annotated photographs, drawings and digital renders to accompany the main documents in your plan and ‘show your working’ can also help stakeholders to understand your proposal more quickly and easily. See Appendix 2 for examples.

Well evidenced and designed woodland creation proposals that demonstrate compliance with UKFS should meet the ‘Stage 1’ EIA screening requirements, avoiding the need for ‘Stage 2’ EIA consent.

Analysis

Your desk and site survey work will have provided information on the opportunities and constraints on site, and the level of mitigation that should be planned for.

Analyse the information you have gathered: what does it tell you about the likely impacts of woodland creation on your site and on the local community and other local interests? This will ensure that all relevant areas or interests are appropriately protected (for example, by using appropriate non-planted buffers) and indicate whether advice from public or statutory bodies or specialist groups is necessary.

Details of evidence collected from both the desk and site surveys can be added to the issues log in your woodland creation plan and used as a record of the areas of interest that require mitigation. The issues log allows space for recording any engagement with stakeholders and/or advice from statutory bodies, or to provide evidence that no issues have been found on site and no additional mitigation is necessary.

Avoiding negative impacts through careful woodland creation design and stakeholder engagement should always be prioritised, with potential negative impacts mitigated where they cannot be completely avoided. Compensation for negative impacts should be a last resort.

An analysis of characteristics and impacts is an important part of designing and communicating your woodland creation proposal. It will inform how the management objectives and stakeholder aspirations for your woodland could be delivered.

The analysis may demonstrate why current constraints limit what your proposal could deliver; its interpretation will therefore contribute towards stakeholder understanding of your proposals.

Your analysis is important and will help you to:

• decide the design concept and options
• clarify and summarise likely impacts and mitigation proposals
• demonstrate that you have factored these aspects into your proposal

The analysis should cover all the characteristics of the site and its immediate surroundings, listed in Section 2 (Desk survey), in the form of a site appraisal plan. This is a spatial plan that shows your site divided into zones, each representing landscape character types based on your surveys and analysis (see Appendix 1 for an example).

Every site requires some level of landscape character appraisal that should capture and highlight the distinctive landscape and visual features and characteristics of a proposed site and its context, on either an Ordnance Survey or an aerial photography backdrop. The level of detail will be dictated by the complexity and sensitivity of the site. On the simplest sites the analysis can be undertaken by applying the 7 UKFS forest design principles summarised in Section 2 (UKFS forest design principles).

On larger, sensitive, or more complex sites, a higher level of analysis may be required, and specialist landscape input may be necessary. For example, where a proposal is expected to have a significant impact, the EIA regulations may require an in-depth landscape and visual character appraisal (survey and analysis), which should be undertaken by a professional landscape architect.

You should discuss the findings of your analysis with your Woodland Officer. This will influence how your plan develops, help to identify key issues that might need further analysis, and indicate the best time to engage with stakeholders.

Synthesis

The synthesis stage brings together your planning so far in order to develop one or more design concept plans and a draft management plan.

Producing a design concept plan is a vital stage in designing your new woodland. It shows one or more design options, as informed by your analysis and site appraisal plan, and broadly indicates what your new woodland will consist of (woodland type, species and mixture specification, stocking density, edge treatment and open ground). The detail and annotations on the design concept plan must be clear, with well identified keys and legends.

The outputs from this stage of the process will be one or more design concept plans, supported by annotated photographs, sections and perspectives that help consultees to understand and visualise your woodland creation proposal.

Stakeholder engagement

Stakeholder engagement is an important opportunity for you to explain your objectives and plans to those interested parties identified at the scoping phase, and for you to take account of their views.

Initial contact should be made early in the process of developing your plans and to avoid any unexpected issues arising during our formal consultation and Public Register processes, which are usually needed for us to make our regulatory and funding decisions to approve a woodland creation project. It is your responsibility to undertake stakeholder engagement. Your woodland officer will be able to advise you on which stakeholders should be considered and the type of engagement that should take place to obtain the right level of information from stakeholders.

You may need to engage with stakeholders more than once during the planning process, as your woodland creation design plan develops. Where you have identified stakeholders you should contact, further information on who to contact and how can be found on Forestry project checks: all projects.

Designing a new woodland is an iterative process, and so is stakeholder engagement. A final design tends to be arrived at over time and following multiple discussions with different stakeholders. Be prepared to engage with stakeholders early and to ‘show your working’ to them.

Prepare for stakeholder engagement

Information you should supply to stakeholders:

• a short summary of your proposal
• your issues log (where appropriate)
• your landscape character appraisal (including a landscape context plan), a site appraisal plan and at least one design concept plan

Sharing your design concept plan (or plans, where there is more than one design option, issues log and other materials) created during the scoping, surveys and analysis stages with stakeholders gives them the opportunity to see what you have considered and if any remaining issues need to be discussed. These can also be used to provide statutory bodies with any specific information they need to provide a targeted response.

Highlighting specific issues that you expect stakeholders to comment on will help them to provide targeted responses and demonstrate to them that you have considered the site thoroughly.

Engage stakeholders

The method of stakeholder engagement should reflect the size of your woodland creation proposal, extent of operations and sensitivities on your site, and the potential to impact on other people’s interests. If you will be holding a public meeting, schedule it for early in the process to allow people time to respond.

Offer your stakeholders enough information to let them consider the issues raised by your proposed new woodland. Provide them with a short summary of your key proposals, your management objectives, potential timber transport access points and detail of proposed public access together with accompanying maps and plans. It may also be helpful to provide them with a copy of your issues log. The information you give to your stakeholders must be clear and understandable.

Review stakeholder responses

Record the issues raised through stakeholder engagement on your issues log. This will be used to establish the relevance of the issue and your strategy to resolve it. Later, when you are ready to finalise your plan, you should send a copy of the updated issues log to your Forestry Commission Woodland Officer along with a copy of any responses received, to help us make our regulatory and funding decisions about your proposal.

Make an objective assessment (with respect to the UKFS) of the likely impact that each issue could have through the creation and management of the woodland, or on the existing land use. This should recognise and highlight areas of potential conflict between the various objectives of stakeholders and the proposed management objectives.

You may also find it useful to update the site appraisal plan and design concept plans with any new information after completing stakeholder engagement.

Address the main issues

Agree the main issues and identify the need for any further stakeholder engagement with your woodland officer.

We will decide if stakeholders who respond have a material interest with respect to the UKFS and we will subsequently make final decisions on relevant concerns.

The issues log should be used to record how issues have been resolved and those that have been identified but are not expected to be resolved. It can also be used as a prompt for follow up action.

Give an outline of any additional surveys to be undertaken as a result of your stakeholder engagement.

It may not always be possible to resolve every issue raised while still delivering the management objectives for your woodland creation proposal. Where this is the case, a rationale for your response should be provided and discussed with your woodland officer.

Finalising your plan

Finalising your plan involves drawing together the written and graphical information you have gathered throughout the planning and design process and integrating it with your management objectives and your analysis of the site’s opportunities and constraints.

When preparing your woodland creation plan you should be mindful that we will assess the final plan against the legal and good forestry practice requirements of the UKFS and, where above the relevant threshold, against the Environmental Impact Assessment regulations. The proposals may also be placed on the Public Register for public awareness (see Section 4). You must ensure the plan contains enough information to enable this assessment.

Summary:

• all woodland creation plans must comply with the UKFS. This is a minimum baseline for regulatory and grant funding approval
• you are expected to collect and provide information on land in and around your site through scoping, desk-based information gathering and surveys
• creating an issues log at the start and keep it up to date with new information will help your stakeholder engagement
• stakeholder feedback and your responses to it should also be added to the issues log to show that you have considered all relevant feedback and advice
• a landscape character appraisal which includes a landscape context plan, site appraisal plan and one or more design concept plans will help stakeholders (and your Forestry Commission Woodland Officer) to understand your site and your woodland creation proposal
• you are expected to bring together and analyse all the data and stakeholder responses contained in your issues log, and integrate them with your management objectives, to shape your final woodland creation proposal

Next: Section 4: Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).