IT IS clear from the overwhelming public response to The Northern Echo’s Save Our Forests campaign that there is a real sense of outrage over the Government’s plans to sell off England’s 258,000-hectare public forest estate.

Since the proposals were announced, groups opposing the sale have sprung up across the country.

Here, hundreds of Northern Echo readers have already signed our petition opposing the sell off.

Although the Government is trying to hold the line, the 42 Coalition MPs with more than 1,000 acres of woodland maintained by the Forestry Commission in their constituencies must be deeply concerned.

They include Guy Opperman, the Conservative MP for Hexham, whose constituency includes 49,000 acres affected in the Kielder Forest.

If this sale goes ahead, will the new custodians of our most precious woodlands be as reticent to outline their plans as the London-based consultancy which paid £3.25m for The Stang, in County Durham, last month? We hope not.

The forest estate may account for only 18 per cent of England’s woodlands, but it makes up nearly half of the publicly accessible woodland.

Assurances that conditions would be attached to all sales to protect public access to privatised forests won’t wash when we are talking about the biggest change in English land ownership since the Second World War.

The Government must take notice before it is too late.