Forestry England - Legal Challenge Update #SaveKensley

In 2016 Kensley Sheds was saved from demolition and over £90k of lottery money was invested into the building through Forester's Forest / Forestry England.

Scott Bain, with New Leaf / The Rewild Project volunteered hundreds of hours to project manage & eco refurb Kensley Shed, along with many other local volunteers, and turned it into the beautiful community craft centre is it today.

Over the past 7 years first as Arbor Training, then The Rewild Project have ran the New Leaf Social Forestry Project from 'the sheds' and turned it into a thriving hub of traditional crafts, running open access FREE community sessions, and weekend workshop often 7 days per week.

- reviving heritage crafts and addressing the mental health crisis here in the Forest by giving people a connection to nature again.  We have worked with schools, alternative provisions, home educators, excluded units - and have set up a Level 2 qualification in Craft and Land Skills.

Forestry England

FE are the 'owners' of the building and so acting Landlords.

We have had long positive relationship with them, 

they are supposed to be there to act in the interests of the local community in a fair and unbiased way.

They have promised us time and time again over a number of years...

- to arrange a 10 year lease to give us security, allow us to access more funding for the building and to keep developing the craft sessions.

Pulling the Rug

Before Christmas there was 1 misguided complaint about an activity we ran (which we run every year, with their knowledge)

Almost immediately they gave us 1 week to get out, even before any investigations had been done.

Then they tried to change the locks on the sheds on 3rd January - before they'd even told us the OUTCOME of the 'investigation'!!

Taking the community assets held here.

- not allowing us any time to find another building to move to - their intention was to remove the community support sessions so many people have come to rely on.

Eventually on 9th January they told us the outcome, but they hadn't even asked for OUR SIDE - nada, nothing - and apparently NO RIGHT TO APPEAL!!!

So we took 3 months to do a REALLY thorough and robust investigation of our own, including an external HSE audit 

- showing that we did nothing wrong, (and a LOT RIGHT) 

we proved that we only did what many other outdoor providers were doing at exactly the same time.  We showed that our staff are highly trained and did all their due diligence AND MORE when it comes to the safety of the children in our care.

- but they don't care 

- it seems like a good excuse to get us out, get people OFF the LAND and let yet another Forestry England owned building go to rack & ruin.

We would like the opportunity to buy it even - but no discussion there either..... 

(the overlords don't speak to the peasants - obviously!)

Reasonable & Professional Negotiations

All through the last few months we have contacted them, again and again to open the door for negotiations, in reasonable and professional manner.  We have a full paper trail showing how we have tried to keep this out of the courts.

But they are true bully boys and will not be seen to negotiate with us peasants.

We have been completely disrespected - totally stone walled every single time.

We have even had a barrister acting pro-bono who also tried to engage them in reasonable discussions about an exit strategy and how to safeguard the assets invested here - nope totally stonewalled their too.

They then entered a possession hearing against us, calling us Trespassers! 

(We are absolutely not - we have been staying onsite at Kensley Sheds ancillary to the licence, to safeguard the community assets from theft by Forestry England)

Court Hearing

So we attended court yesterday, self representing at this first stage 

AND the judge decided that we do have a case against them!!

Despite their barrister pushing HARD for an immediate possession ruling.

- we had put together a fab court bundle of all the evidence we have gathered so far, but there is so much more to do too.

We have a solicitor willing to act for us at the next hearing, which will be in around 2 - 4 weeks time.

This will decide whether we had a legitimate expectation that Forestry England would renew our licence, based on past experiences of the 7 year long relationship.

If this is found to be the case 

- we win the right to Forestry England conducting a FAIR and UNBIASED investigation on which to base their decisions.

We know that a fair and unbiased decision making process would find NO FAULT / NO RISK - just as an external HSE officer found!

WOW why should it cost so much money to hold our public servants accountable for their actions?  For them to act in a FAIR, REASONABLE and PROFESSIONAL way?

This represents a GROSS ABUSE of POWER - behaviour which they show time and time again and we want them to know that the people of The Forest of Dean deserve to have community assets, held BY the community FOR the community.

So many people have worked so hard to make this building what it is today, let's not let it all go to waste.

Please help us to raise £3k as a starting point to get this legal case off the ground, and maybe more will be needed - who knows how much these things cost!

Thank you so much for reading.

Scott Baine & Emma Gleave