Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Obviously, you mentioned the visitor centres, and we were very concerned about the closure of the visitor centres,
00:06and a great deal of disappointment from the public that that's happened.
00:11So, you think you would move to restore trust with the public, and how would you do that?
00:22It's a bit like turning a big old tanker, isn't it?
00:26Because it takes so long to... Trust is often given to people.
00:30When you come along.
00:32When you lose it, it's going to take a very long time to build it, and we've got to start building these bridges now.
00:37And the best way to build bridges is go and talk to them and listen to them,
00:40and then see if we can start co-creating an answer, rather than a carrot.
00:44At the moment, it's a stick answer, rather than let's create a carrot to go with it.
00:48So, how can we co-create an answer that can help open up these visitor centres?
00:53Some of the things that we've been talking about in other places...
00:57In fact, we used to chair the National Arboretum in Westenburg, and that has a charity.
01:05So, it's a Forestry England forest, but there's a charity that runs and generates cash
01:11to ensure a large number of activities that impact the visitors is generated that way.
01:17So, is that a possibility?
01:19So, can we work with locals, local communities?
01:22Can we create a volunteer scheme to make sure we can get some of the...
01:26That's just one example.
01:27Can we partner, possibly, if these woodland are being used for commercial reasons,
01:32can the commercial partner help us to restore these visitor centres again?
01:36So, there's got to be a way of working through the problem to find the solution you want,
01:42rather than saying, we're just closing off that as an opportunity.
01:46It is...
01:47We've got to keep some access and some information for citizens,
01:52when they walk around our woodland, to benefit from education that these forests give them,
01:58rather than just for walking their dogs.
02:00So, there's a mixture we've got to create out of the two things.