Michael Ansell is to take up a new role as Head of Estates Development at Forest Enterprise Scotland at the beginning of January next year.
Over the last several years, Mr Ansell has been responsible for building up the renewables energy business on the National Forest Estate in Scotland.
Under his management of the renewables unit, there is now almost 1 GW of installed energy (wind and hydro) capacity across the National Forest Estate in Scotland with £3.5m in community benefit set to be distributed this year alone.
In his new role, Mr Ansell will bring together the ‘estates’ team, which oversees land management and property transactions with the renewables unit. The new merged team will be known as Estates Development.
He said:
“By bringing the Estates and Renewables teams together, the new Estates Development unit will be at the centre of Forest Enterprise Scotland’s ability to deliver more efficiently on the ground.
“Our aim is to build on previous successes and strengthen our delivery of Scottish Government priorities in an efficient manner. We have many exciting and innovative programmes to take forward ranging from the starter farms programme, repositioning of the estate and taking further our renewables and other initiatives all the while against a background of even greater community engagement.
“I look forward to this new role and working with a variety of stakeholders.”
