Woodland Management Training & Forestry Courses
From woodland management to chainsaw training courses, all of our training is suited to those currently working, or aspiring to work, in Forestry, Arboriculture and land-based industries.
Our training courses are listed below together with a calendar of our complete training schedule at the bottom of the page. We run chainsaw and woodland management courses in Berkshire, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Dorset, Gloucestershire, the Cotswolds, Avon and Somerset.
Join us on one of our open scheduled training courses or contact us for bespoke training tailored specifically for you and your colleagues.
Book Woodland Management Courses
All course prices exclude VAT.
Land Based Machinery Handling Course Descriptions
Safe Use of a Mobile Elevated Work Platform
Duration: 1 Days – Cost: £150.00 + v.a.t
MEWP training for those who use a Mobile Elevated Work Platform (MEWP) in their work, this qualification will help prove your skills, be it in arboriculture, maintenance or repair work.
Download course description as pdfSafe Use of a Powered Pole Pruner
Duration: 1 Days – Cost: £210.00 + v.a.t
This qualification is for the pruning of trees using pole mounted, long reach pruning equipment, which may include: extendable pruning saws, powered pole pruners, loppers. The trees will be cut by removing branches using cuts that are finished to the current standard for pruning in treework. This unit is not about using hedge trimmers. Your work must conform to all current legislation and codes of practice. This standard is for those people who use powered pole pruners.
Download course description as pdfSafe Use of Brush-cutters and Trimmers
Duration: 2 Days – Cost: £290.00 + v.a.t
The qualification is aimed at those who use brush-cutters or trimmers as part of their work, either in horticulture, arboriculture or forestry.
Download course description as pdf
Safe Use of Manually Fed Wood-Chipper
Duration: 1 Days – Cost: £150.00 + v.a.t
A course designed to enable learners to maintain, prepare and operate a manually fed brushwood chipper.
Download course description as pdfSafe Use of Stump Grinders
Duration: 1 Days – Cost: £150.00 + v.a.t
Suitable for anyone employed in arboriculture, forestry, gardening, horticulture or landscaping that are required to operate a stump grinder. This course covers the knowledge and skills required for candidates to be assessed on NPTC Stump Grinders certificate of competence.
Download course description as pdf1 Day Health & Safety Course
Emergency First Aid at Work + Forestry
Duration: 1 Days – Cost: £127.50 + v.a.t
This theoretical and practical course is designed to help you and your colleagues stay safe in the forest. This course builds on the required skills, knowledge and understanding from Emergency First Aid at Work to give you the critical breadth and depth required in the Forestry industry.
Forestry Commission policy recommends that those who work in the Forestry industry attend First Aid training which includes additional topics relevant to the risks and nature of their work, including:
- Severe bleeding (i.e. chainsaw injury)
- Crush injury
- Hypothermia
- Lyme Disease
The Emergency First Aid at Work + Forestry course is internally assessed by Continual Assessment (there is no formal assessment process) and on successful completion of the course candidates will receive certification valid for 3 years.
Pest Control
Goodnature Traps – Onsite Workshops
Grey squirrels cause serious damage in young woodland, stripping bark and browsing the new shoots of newly planted and regenerating trees, sometimes killing or permanently disfiguring the leading stem. Effective squirrel control is therefore a key part of protecting a new planting scheme, which is why we host onsite workshops with Goodnature Traps UK, open to individuals from neighbouring estates as well as your own course attendees. These sessions cover the most current, field-tested advice on using the A18 Grey Squirrel trap to best effect, helping estates get grey squirrel management right.
Contact Goodnature Traps UK
Full Training Schedule
We hold woodland management, Chainsaw and Forestry training courses year round. All courses are delivered in a woodland environment for the optimum learning experience. we also run training sessions at our customers sites for whole groups from the same company. These can be standard courses or be bespoke, incorporating modules or elements from any of our courses.
You can check availability and book directly from the calendar, or call 01488 685007 with any questions.
All course prices exclude VAT.
‘We reserve the right to reschedule any course up to 7 days of its commencement if the courses do not fill, either an alternate date or a full refund will be offered’
Woodland Management Course FAQs
What does the “Safe Use of a Manually Fed Wood Chipper” course actually cover — is it more than just feeding branches in?
Yes — it’s built around the NPTC Level 2 standard, which assesses five areas: legislation and risk assessment, pre-start machine checks, safe operating technique across different timber sizes, clearing blockages without reaching into the in-feed chute, and routine maintenance. The in-feed chute is where most chipper injuries happen — entanglement and crushing as material is pulled in — so a large part of the course is about safe feeding technique, exclusion zones, and knowing when to stop and clear a jam properly rather than under time pressure.
Do I need a separate ticket for a stump grinder, or does the wood chipper course cover that too?
Separate ticket. A chipper’s main hazard is entanglement at the in-feed; a stump grinder’s is ejected debris and stone fragments thrown from a spinning cutting wheel, which calls for different positioning, exclusion zones and PPE. NPTC assesses them as distinct certificates of competence for that reason, and we teach and assess them as separate one-day courses.
Is the Mobile Elevated Work Platform course the same as being trained to use a chainsaw from a MEWP?
No, and this catches people out. Our MEWP course covers safe operation and control of the platform itself — controls, stability, ground conditions, rescue procedure — for arboriculture, maintenance or repair work generally. Using a chainsaw while working aloft from a MEWP is a separate, specialist aerial chainsaw qualification on top of this. If you’re not sure which combination your role needs, call us on 01488 685007 and we’ll talk it through.
What’s the difference between the Brush-cutters and Trimmers course and just using a garden strimmer?
A brush-cutter runs a rigid metal or plastic blade rather than a nylon line, and behaves very differently — blade contact and kickback are real risks a domestic strimmer doesn’t present. There’s no legal “licence” to use one, but under health and safety law your employer has to ensure you’re trained and competent before you use one at work, which is what this two-day course (covering both blade and line-head machines) certifies.
Why is the Powered Pole Pruner course not just a hedge-trimming course?
Because it isn’t hedge work. This course qualifies you to prune trees to the current arboricultural pruning standard — proper, clean cuts that support the tree’s health — using pole-mounted saws, powered pole pruners and loppers, rather than shearing a hedge line to shape. It’s a tree-work qualification, assessed against tree-work cutting standards, not a hedge-cutting one.
Why do you run a forestry-specific first aid course instead of a standard workplace first aid course?
Standard Emergency First Aid at Work doesn’t cover the injuries forestry work actually produces. Our Emergency First Aid at Work + Forestry course builds on it with the additional topics Forestry Commission policy recommends for the sector: severe bleeding (a chainsaw injury being the obvious example), crush injuries, hypothermia from working outdoors in poor conditions, and Lyme disease from tick exposure. It’s assessed by continual assessment through the course rather than a single exam, and the certificate is valid for three years.