Landowner who chopped down protected woodland in ‘devastating’ loss to the environment is fined just £1,500

A landowner who felled a protected forest in an Area of ​​Outstanding Natural Beauty has been fined just £1,500.

Jeff Lane, 73, caused a ‘devastating loss’ to the environment in what Natural Resources Wales described as the worst case of illegal tree felling they have seen in 30 years.

Lane will have to pay an £11,000 seizure order after clearing forestry in Wales with enough timber to fill 17 articulated lorries.

The first yield of Crime At a hearing into illegal felling of trees in Britain, the total value of the benefit for Lane was £78,614.

Aerial photographs were shown of the eight hectares of native and wet woodland in Gower, Swansea, which was demolished in 2019.

Lane was found guilty of felling the trees without a permit and failing to comply with a notice to restock the trees he felled in 2019. He later lost his appeal against both convictions.

Jeff Lane, 73, was fined just £1,500 despite illegally felling a protected forest in an Area of ​​Outstanding Beauty in Wales

The father-of-three, described as ‘a man of limited means’, was fined £500 for the first offense and £1,000 for the second.

Natural Resources Wales, which took him to court, estimated the cost of re-stocking the forest at £52,000.

But Lane told Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court: ‘I could do it a lot cheaper – about half that price. I looked at the cost of saplings and they are quite cheap to be honest.

“There are already trees starting to grow, I don’t know what they are.”

Retired mechanic Lane bought the land in 2017 for his daughter to run a pony trekking and alpaca walking business.

He claimed the trees were rotting and dangerous and he obtained a permit to thin them, not cut down the entire forest.

He was advised to stop all logging, but in September 2020 NRW officers received photographs taken by the Gower Society, showing an area of ​​wiped out trees.

David Singh, defending, said Lane had no previous convictions and was in poor health.

He said: ‘He can’t pay his mortgage and after paying his car loan and daily living expenses he has virtually nothing left.’

Len’s available assets of £17,645 consisted of the equity in his property and the value of his 13-year-old Range Rover, which has a finance agreement in place.

Judge Richard Kember said Lane had engaged in ‘criminal conduct’ and had derived financial benefit from failing to comply with the enforcement order to replenish the forest.

He told the defendant: ‘Natural Resources Wales say this is the worst case of tree felling they have ever come across.

Aerial photographs show the eight hectares of native and wet woodland in Gower, Swansea before being felled (left) and after being demolished by Lane in 2019 (right)

‘It wouldn’t be going too far to say that the forest has been effectively wiped out.

‘You were given a thinning permit, intended to allow the habitat to flourish and grow. It’s about a reduction, not an eradication.

“This was a blatant violation of the authorization you were given.”

The judge said the fines were ‘significantly’ reduced due to the seizure order of £11,280.77. Lane was warned that he would go to jail for six months if he did not pay the fine in full by September 14

Lane, of Lower Fairwood, Swansea, will pay off his £50-a-month fine.

Nick Fackrell, senior forest regulation and tree plant health officer for NRW, said at the time of Lane’s sentencing: ‘This is one of the worst cases of illegal tree felling that NRW has investigated in more than 30 years. We conducted a thorough investigation and there were strong indications that illegal logging activities had taken place.

‘The loss of this native and wet forest is devastating and it will take many generations for new trees to grow to replace them, if they grow at all.

‘NRW and the professional forestry industry work incredibly hard to ensure that tree felling takes place in accordance with the Forestry Act and that the forests they manage meet the UK Forestry Standard.

‘Logging permits are part of the system we have in place so that we can effectively manage and protect our trees and forests and ensure we all continue to benefit from them now and in the future.’