Huge North forest plans hit with legal challenge

A LEGAL challenge has frustrated efforts to plant what could be England's largest forest in more than four decades.

- TOM KEIGHLEY Business writer [e-mail]

Forest Park True North

A High Court ruling means a judicial review will take place into the planting of a 290-hectare forest on farmland near Lanchester, County Durham.

Investment firm True North Real Asset Partners wants to create an unbroken expanse of forest on the Greencroft Estate, using 600,000 trees.

The mammoth project which is also linked to holiday accommodation plans would become the country's largest contiguous commercial forest planted since the 1980s but has prompted some local opposition.

Lanchester Properties, which is part of a business group that includes Lanchester Wines and Greencroft Bottling, brought a legal case against the Forestry Commission, which approved the scheme.

The firm, which claims the scheme would damage its nearby wind turbines and cost the local community financially, has argued the decision to progress the scheme without a full Environmental Impact Assessment was wrong. It says it has "shouldered the cost" of the legal action so as to give residents a voice.

Now, overturning a decision to the contrary last year, a High Court judge has ruled there must be a hearing of details in the case, bringing the scheme to a temporary halt.