Jim Wilmer & Sons Timber Harvesting

While driving to a meeting in Dumfries and Galloway, I got held up by road works on the Carsphairn to Castle Douglas road. I couldn’t see what the problem was until traffic started moving and I spotted a Jim Wilmer and Sons Timber Harvesting road traffic management (RTM) vehicle next to the traffic lights. 
An area of Sitka Spruce adjacent to the busy A713 was being clearfelled and required traffic management. This is standard for felling any trees which are less than two tree lengths away from the main road. 

After passing the site I started to think about the logistics of this type of work and it prompted me to speak to Jim Wilmer, who arranged for me to meet up with David, his son and right-hand man. David has taken a good percentage of the workload off Jim and spends much of his time liaising with landowners and foresters and walking and pricing jobs so that there is always plenty of work in front of their large fleet of harvesters and forwarders.

Traffic management is necessary as it provides a safe environment for those working on, or near the roads and for the people using the roads

Arriving on site, I could see straight away that this was quite a tricky job. Not only were the trees quite close to the road, but there was an electricity powerline running through the middle of the site. This privately owned forest was being managed and marketed by Tilhill and there was approximately 3,000m³ of timber being harvested, with an average tree size of 0.7m³. Chatting to David he thought that this would be the final day where traffic management was needed, as all the trees up to two tree lengths away from the road would be felled and processed by that evening. If everything went to plan, it would have only taken five days to complete the roadside work. 

Iain McCulloch was operating the John Deere 1470 harvester and to be fair he was doing a cracking job. The stumps were nice and low and his presentation for the forwarder was spot on. I saw that the John Deere 1510 forwarder was parked up and offered my services. This job was a forwarder operators dream but Eric Kirkland who normally operates the forwarder was helping out on another site and due back later that day ☹

Iain managed to cut most of the trees within reach of the road but a deep drain at the edge of the compartment meant that some of the trees were just out of reach and were being cut and wedged over by chainsaw operators. Both chainsaw operators, Scott Rodger and Jim Gilmour, had completed their LANTRA Road Traffic Management training courses.

When any edge, or trees within reach of the road, were being felled, traffic was stopped in both directions, and both sets of lights automatically on red. The lights were manned so that workers could stop work immediately if a vehicle stupidly decided to jump a red light. Everyone on site was working quickly, efficiently and safely to cause as little disruption as possible to the road users. This type of work is labour intensive and requires skilled operatives that can work and communicate well together. 

Ian McCulloch at the controls of the John Deere 1470 harvester

Martyn Henry, operations manager for Jim Wilmer and Sons Timber Harvesting, oversees the smooth running of the site, alongside Iain McMurtrie, harvesting manager for Tilhill. Iain called in while I was on site and was delighted with the quality and the speed at which the work was progressing. 

After Iain McMurtrie left, I quizzed David about the complexities of putting a job like this together, he explained that it involved four or five site meetings between the relevant parties to co-ordinate the plans prior to commencing work. This harvesting site was just outside the Ayrshire Councils border and was the responsibility of Dumfries and Galloway Council regarding traffic management. David has worked regularly with both Councils and has found them brilliant to work along with as they have proven to be extremely helpful and do their utmost to make sure the work runs smoothly. Carrying out this type of work successfully is no easy task, having the right operatives, correct equipment, staff training, up to date certification, insurance and being able to work to tight deadlines are just some of the hurdles to be overcome. 

I can see why Jim puts so much trust in David though, he is a good-natured young man with a good business head on his shoulders. He has an affable personality which is a great asset when liaising with so many people. 

 “Nothing is easy in forestry” stated David with a wry smile as he explained yet another challenge they faced on this site “We had a live powerline running through the middle of the job and the direction we needed to fell some of the trees in was across a tarmac road which had to remain undamaged. We all got together and came up with a good 

solution. We stacked a few layers of sawlogs either side of the tarmac road and felled the standing trees onto the logs so that the trees or branches never touched the road.”

Nice straight Sitka yielding 85% sawlogs

Looking around the site there was a good breakout of sawlogs – 85% – and the timber was nice and straight. Ground conditions were good and firm and once harvesting has been completed the brash will be recovered and delivered to Land Energy in Girvan to be turned into biomass fuel. 

This was a well organised job being undertaken by a good team of professionals with exceptional communication skills. If you have any timber harvesting that requires Road Traffic Management, please contact David Wilmer on 07879 417170.

info@jimwilmer.co.uk 
www.jimwilmer.co.uk

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