Hendrik van Boeckel

Tens of thousands of tonnes of timber felled by Storm Arwen are being shipped to Belgium from north-east England. Thousands of trees were brought down across the county by winds of up to 98mph in November last year. Many are cracked and stained and only usable as chipboard or as biomass fuel but need to be cleared. Hendrik van Boeckel, from Berwick, who has begun removing and transporting the logs, said he was “just sending out peanuts”. He said: “There’s a million-and-a-half tonnes came down and we’re just shipping out a tiny amount in a very small boat.” Other companies, including sawmills and a local biomass plant, were “doing their bit” to clear and process fallen timber, he said. …The scale of trees felled by the storm has been attributed in part to the wind’s direction. Woodland grows to withstand England’s prevailing south-westerly wind but, unusually, Arwen came from the north east.