Our property is detached in the country and bordered by council-owned (they own the whole countryside round here from what they told us) woodland though actual borders are not particularly clear or well-defined.
I'd like to (sensitively) cultivate some small bits of it for instance plant native trees for sustainable firewood production, clear tangled undergrowth, prevent overcrowding, plant native flowers. I want to be very clear we view this land as something to be cared for and cherished - while we would like to get some wood out of it it's also the view from our windows so stripping out a load of trees for quick gains is not the idea. Sadly the owner has no funds to manage their woodland so it is rather unkempt.
Nobody is realistically ever going to check because you can't even get to the land except via our property easily. Even so while I would be prepared to plant trees I wouldn't be happy chopping them down while the land was not mine. In fact we've even resisted the temptation to gather dead wood as it is good habitat for wildlife.
So I wondered if the law still allows you to fence off a section and then in X years claim it? If so I could care for the land in the meantime and then in X years, 'annex' a section and start periodically harvesting wood from trees we have ourselves planted.
Has anyone here done this with similar 'dead land' adjacent to their property? As it happens, half our garden was acquired in exactly this fashion decades ago by a former owner, for use as a smallholding... we have a copy of the letter!
I'd like to (sensitively) cultivate some small bits of it for instance plant native trees for sustainable firewood production, clear tangled undergrowth, prevent overcrowding, plant native flowers. I want to be very clear we view this land as something to be cared for and cherished - while we would like to get some wood out of it it's also the view from our windows so stripping out a load of trees for quick gains is not the idea. Sadly the owner has no funds to manage their woodland so it is rather unkempt.
Nobody is realistically ever going to check because you can't even get to the land except via our property easily. Even so while I would be prepared to plant trees I wouldn't be happy chopping them down while the land was not mine. In fact we've even resisted the temptation to gather dead wood as it is good habitat for wildlife.
So I wondered if the law still allows you to fence off a section and then in X years claim it? If so I could care for the land in the meantime and then in X years, 'annex' a section and start periodically harvesting wood from trees we have ourselves planted.
Has anyone here done this with similar 'dead land' adjacent to their property? As it happens, half our garden was acquired in exactly this fashion decades ago by a former owner, for use as a smallholding... we have a copy of the letter!
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