Petition · past parliament

Give ancient woodland the same protection status as conservation areas.

Rejected 11 signatures

What the petition asks

The UK has one of the lowest tree cover percentages in the world with only 13% of the UK covered by woodland. Ancient woodland makes for about 2% of the total cover. Give Ancient woodland full legal protection and stop woodlands from been cut down for development of Roads and buildings.
We are loosing the last of our ancient to developments
I'm aware of at least 400 ancient woods currently under threat in the UK. I point to the examples of Oaken Wood in Kent, Smithy wood near Sheffield. HS2 will cost us (74 acres) in phase one alone.
Taken from the forestry.gov website:
Full planning permission for a development automatically provides an exemption for felling trees.
In reality ancient woodland has no legal protection from development and we need to save then before there gone

Why it was rejected

There was already a petition about this issue. Duplicates are rejected so signatures collect in one place.

Timeline

20 Mar 2017 Petition opened for signatures
29 Mar 2017 Rejected by the Petitions Committee

Key facts

Signatures 11
Status Rejected
Rejected 29 Mar 2017

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Source: the official petition page. Last checked 15 Jul 2026.