Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to ensure local communities are involved in the management of new national forests.

Community engagement is central to the approach we will encourage these new national forests to apply, and reflects the approach embedded by the original National Forest in the Midlands, which is managed by the National Forest Company. As an illustration of their dedication to community engagement, in 2021 the National Forest Company brought together its 70 community woods groups and conservation organisations under the Community Woods Network.