{"id":680024,"date":"2026-07-08T08:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T08:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/680024\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T08:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T08:28:10","slug":"why-i-used-an-89000-pension-lump-sum-to-buy-five-acres-of-woodland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/680024\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I used an \u00a389,000 pension lump sum to buy five acres of woodland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matthew Barber, 66, decided to do something a little different when he received his pension lump sum<\/a> four years ago. <\/p>\n

In April 2022, the doctor, who now practises as a locum GP<\/a>, spent \u00a389,000 buying five and a half acres of woodland in Somerset.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a partner at a GP practice, and I received a lump sum as part of my pension. I\u2019d done a bit of tree planting in the past and I Googled \u2018tree planting\u2019,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

He ended up buying via a website called Woodlands.co.uk, which came up in his search and charged roughly \u00a316,000 an acre.<\/p>\n

While the price was higher than if he bought direct, Matthew found the legal process of purchasing the land ran very smoothly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe easiest part was buying it and the conveyancing. It\u2019s much easier than when you buy a house,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The woodland is in Midsomer Norton, Somerset, 20km from where Matthew lives in Bristol, so he can even cycle there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s got a field shelter, a 3-sided shed with one open side for animals to shelter under. If you have a shelter that you can lock up, people think there is something worth nicking in there,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

While Matthew was keen to buy the woodland, he didn\u2019t initially know how he would use it. <\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it is a safe investment,\u201d he says. \u201cMy thinking is that no one can damage it or steal it, there is very little that can happen to it, so the risk was minimal,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

But soon after he\u2019d made the purchase, he was contacted by the Forest of Avon Trust. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey sent the tree officer round, and he gave me a 100 per cent grant to plant 3,000 trees,\u201d says Matthew. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if I caught them at the end of the financial year, when they had a lot of money to spend, but DEFRA paid me \u00a327,000 and included in that was getting a private company to do the planting. I did [the planting] for the enjoyment of it, but they also had people come and do it too.\u201d <\/p>\n

The scheme saw broadleaf trees such as oak, birch, hazel and hawthorn introduced in order to increase biodiversity, flood prevention and maintain the UK\u2019s tree cover.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been three years and many of the trees are now 2.5 metres tall. Matthew has installed owl boxes and barn owls are using them, and there are also trail cameras which have recorded foxes, badgers and birds of prey.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe camp here in the summer as there is a patch of mown grass in the middle of the field. We also do hedge-laying and there is always maintenance, for example the tree stakes need to be secured,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

While maintaining the trees does involve some work, the 66-year-old would recommend buying woodland to others. \u201c[The flexibility] is one of the pleasures of it. If you don\u2019t want to do anything, you don\u2019t have to do much. It will rewild itself and you can let it naturally rewild,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

As buying the woodland was a bit of an unusual investment, Matthew has put the rest of his pension lump sum into ISAs and premium bonds. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was very boring [with the remainder] and just made it part of my normal finances,\u201d he says. Based on what he has seen advertised, Matthew estimates the value of the land has increased by 10 per cent.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew I would be having it for a long time and I\u2019m not planning to sell it for 10 or 15 years,\u201d he says. \u201cAs a long-term investment, it\u2019s safe. If I wanted to sell next year, I\u2019d be less certain.\u201d <\/p>\n

He also wants to ensure that the trees have time to mature so that the land can\u2019t be used for anything else when he does sell: \u201cJust pottering around with a coffee in the shelter we built, it\u2019s my escape from city life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matthew Barber, 66, decided to do something a little different when he received his pension lump sum four…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[84,818,4176,12355,4178,4174,4175,9479,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-680024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-doctors","tag-finance","tag-isas","tag-pensions","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-trees","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}