Mulgrave Estate forked out £20,000 on an Austrian Posch firewood processing machine last year to produce hardwood timber firewood from its 2,500 acres of woodland at Lythe, near Whitby.

John Hoyes, Mulgrave Estate’s resident land agent, said the business had seen a big increase in demand for quality logs, as sales of woodburning stoves and the use of open fires increased.

“I can only see this growing, as fossil fuel prices continue to go up and people become more and more aware of the environmental benefits of wood fuel,” he said.

Mark Hardcastle, who runs waste business Recycling Resources at Kirkburn near Driffield, also invested in processing plant to get into the woodfuel market.

Rather than growing the wood, he diversified his recycling business about three years ago to be able to recycle the wood his existing customers were throwing out. The business recycles the waste wood and the sale of its performance wood fuel chips, called Hotblocks, now represents 60 per cent of the business.

Mark said the business had exhibited over the last three years at trade fairs where they have seen the growth in the sale of wood burning stoves increase by about 30 per cent a year. Demand also rocketed during the bad weather, he said.

“Quite a lot of owners of log burners were looking at alternative sources of wood fuel because they just couldn’t get hold of tree logs. They were just too wet,” he said.