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Woodland Creation application guidance

This revised guidance, first published in July 2026, outlines principles and process you should follow when considering woodland creation.

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Stakeholder engagement

A key part of developing a woodland creation proposal is the engagement with all relevant stakeholders.

Have your say on forestry plans and proposals

The feedback and information gathered should inform the development of the proposal and applicants should explain how they have considered issues raised by stakeholders or identified through surveys.

When all the issues identified have been considered and addressed where appropriate, a summary of the stakeholder engagement exercise should be included as part of the package of information submitted with the proposal for Scottish Forestry for review.

The accompanying 'Stakeholder and Community Engagement and Feedback Guidance' should be read alongside this guidance to support your application. Scottish Forestry will review the summary of the engagement exercises to ensure that relevant issues have been recorded and that the proposed responses are reasonable.

Scottish Forestry Consultation Process

We will normally only consult once on any application.

Where EIA consent is required, the consultation will be undertaken once the EIA report has been prepared.

Otherwise the consultation for proposals intending to apply for grant will normally take place before the formal UKFS assessment and EIA screening opinion have been carried out.

After an initial assessment of the woodland creation application, to ensure compliance with the UK Forestry Standard, Scottish Forestry will then publicly consult on these proposals using an online Public Register.

Following consideration of consultation responses, we will formally assess the proposal.

This formal consultation process enables any interested party, including public bodies (such as local planning authorities, NatureScot, Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, or Historic Environment Scotland, ) to provide comment on proposals directly to Scottish Forestry.

Interested stakeholders should:

have been engaged during the early stages of developing the proposal
also be provided with feedback on how their comments have been considered and, where appropriate, how any issues have been considered or addressed, as detailed in the “Stakeholder and Community Engagement and Feedback Guidance”.

The Public Register consultation allows us to review any issues raised by consultees and check they have been considered and appropriately considered or resolved the woodland creation proposal.

Forestry Engagement and Consultation Processes

Proposals not seeking grant support - compensatory woodland creation

Where woodland removal is approved as part of a planning permission, typically this planning permission is given subject to a condition to undertake compensatory woodland creation.

In such circumstances, applicants are encouraged to use the approach laid out in this guide to demonstrate that the compensatory woodland creation proposal has been:

properly considered and complies with the UKFS
assessed under EIA regulations

Getting expert advice

The woodland creation proposal process places an emphasis on quality and accuracy.

Woodland creation applications produced from superficial survey or poor analysis of information are unlikely to be approved without further work by the applicant.

We recommend that landowners engage the services of a professional forestry agent to help prepare their woodland creation proposals.

Forestry agents may also need to seek other expert advice where there are environmental or landscape sensitivities to be dealt with in the proposal.

Public Access

Woodland creation proposals must make provision for public access, where it has been customary, where there is local interest, and along all forest roads (private ways) constructed under Prior Notification arrangements.

Important

The management of public access in woodlands must be in line with the Scottish Outdoor Access Code.

Particular care must be taken where deer fences are being used and self-closing pedestrian gates will normally be expected where fences cross forest roads and on all routes where there is a demand for public access.