Rural Payments and Services

This option aims to provide support for the creation of a Woods In and Around Towns – Urban Woodland Management Plan which will set out the management and public access objectives for your woodland.

This plan is to support the Woods In and Around Towns options under the Woodland Improvement Grant and the Sustainable Management of Forests.

It must set out the management objectives and the Woods In and Around Towns operations required to achieve these objectives. We will approve your Urban Woodland Management Plan for a ten-year period.

This is a standard cost capital grant that will be paid once we approve a completed plan.

Your plan must capture the entire woodland management unit you wish Woods In and Around Towns funding on, including young woodlands and areas planned for woodland creation.

However the payment of grant will be based on the area of woodland within the plan that has woodland cover of 10 years old and older.

This means we will exclude from grant payment woodland less than 10 years old or areas covered by a woodland creation live contract from a legacy scheme (where the conditions have yet to be met and / or final payments have yet to be made).

We will not pay grant for more than 20 per cent internal designed open ground in the areas eligible for grant payment. For example, if the woodland areas of 10 years old and older have greater than 20 per cent designed open ground attributed to them, we will cap the payment of this grant at a maximum 20 per cent of designed open ground.

The grant rate for the Woods In and Around Towns – Urban Woodland Management Plan is:

• £1000 for eligible areas up to 10 hectares
• £25 per eligible hectare thereafter

At least half of the woodland must be within the Woods In and Around Towns area. Urban woodlands are those within one kilometre of a town with a population of 2000 or more people.

The minimum block size of each individual woodland that we will accept for Woods In and Around Towns funding is 0.5 hectares.

The Woods In and Around Towns area is defined by Forestry Commission Scotland and is available as a layer on the Forestry Commission Scotland map viewer. If you have any doubt about whether your woodland meets this criterion, contact your local Forestry Commission Scotland woodland officer.

To be eligible for grant support the woodland must appear on the National Forest Inventory (with the exception of the National Forest Inventory categories of 'cloud' and 'uncertain'). The National Forest Inventory is available as a layer on the Forestry Commission Scotland map viewer.

There must be free and unhindered public access to all areas included within the proposed management plan area. Areas such as school grounds and golf courses are not eligible unless there is free and unhindered public access to all areas.

You must produce the plan using the Woods In and Around Towns – Urban Woodland Management Plan template document. Example management plans that use the template are available on the Forestry Commission Scotland website.

Please see the Supporting information section below for the information you need to supply us when applying for this option.

Woods In and Around Towns – Urban Woodland Management Plans must comply with the UK Forestry Standard.

To help us assess your application, you must provide us with the following supporting information:

• a map that shows the perimeter of the management unit plan area
• a map that shows the perimeter of the eligible grant payment area if this is less than the area above
• a concept map that illustrates the context, opportunities, constraints and proposed management objectives that will inform the plan

General mapping guidance for the Forestry Grant Scheme

To make sure we achieve the best value for money and to ensure we meet the Forestry Grant Scheme’s objectives, we will assess each application using scoring criteria. These criteria will be specific to this option.

We will set a minimum score that an application for any particular option must achieve to be considered for approval. We will make details available before the launch of the Forestry Grant Scheme.

You should submit a capital claim once we have approved your completed plan.

You cannot make a claim for an area that exceeds that agreed in your contract. Your claim must be for the areas as detailed in your schedule of works, which means you cannot make an interim claim for part of the area shown on a single line of your schedule of works.

• UK Forestry Standard
• Woods In and Around Towns – Urban Woodland Management Plan template
• Woods In and Around Towns – example management plan
• Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation