The European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development:
Europe investing in rural areas
Woodland Heritage’s Whitney Sawmills has just completed a substantial programme of investment in its buildings.
The works at the Herefordshire mill, which were called ‘Whitney Sawmills: Sawing to new Heights’, were buoyed by a grant under the Rural Development Programme England (RDPE) Growth Programme of £59,459, which is part funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development.
The aim of the investment is to increase the volume and value of largely UK grown timber that is milled and sold at Whitney Sawmills, the mill carrying Grown in Britain certification.
The project has been able to transform three buildings at Whitney Sawmills:
Firstly, to create a new reception and office from a redundant barn.
Secondly, to convert part of the air-drying store into a dried timber sales and storage area, which was previously housed elsewhere on site, and
Thirdly, using the mill’s own money only, to extend the vacated space where the dried timber was stored previously, to allow a new saw to be installed in spring/summer 2022.
Visitors to Whitney Sawmills can now drive straight onto the site with both the new office and the dried timber store either side of an improved parking area.
One of the conditions of the grant-aid was that two new posts should be created, which due to increased demand have been brought forward ahead of when planned. A Timber Sales Coordinator role was filled in September last year, with a trainee sawyer starting this spring.
