With some councils struggling to manage woodland, community enterprises are protecting, nurturing and releasing the value in these important spaces
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Rain is hammering down in North Dean Wood, one of the biggest areas of woodland in Calderdale, West Yorkshire. It’s filled with birdsong and, where a small area of birch and oak has recently been coppiced, a swathe of bluebells is blooming under the newly opened woodland canopy.
“When you cut down trees to ground level you get incredibly vigorous regrowth which then provides a sustainable supply of timber for a range of products. Plus, by opening up the woodland to increased light you encourage wildlife to move in,” says Keith Wilson from Blackbark Woodland Management, explaining the ancient art of coppicing.
Wilson is a founding member of the woodland coop, which launched three years ago. It’s one of a growing number of social enterprises now engaged in woodland management.
“There are currently about 100 community-based and social enterprise run woodlands,” says Mike Perry, head of policy development at the Plunkett Foundation, which hosts the Woodland Social Enterprise Network.
The network was created in 2013 as a response to government attempts to sell sections of public woodland to private companies. In the end, a petition signed by 500,000 people saw a change of heart by government. But Plunkett and other supporters of community woodland decided that social enterprise could have more of a presence. He says network members and social enterprises in general have since been recognised by government and the Forestry Commission for the value they can add.
“There’s a massive untapped potential for social enterprises running woodlands as there’s a huge amount of woodland that lies unmanaged, which could unlock a vast amount of value in terms of social, economic and environmental outcomes,” Perry says. “Social enterprises can succeed in this sector where other forms of business and the public sector either won’t or can’t operate.”
One of the UK’s most innovative and successful woodland-based social enterprises is the 32-acre Hill Holt Wood in Lincolnshire, which has been operating since 2002. Now employing 40 people and with a turnover of £1.2m, Hill Holt operates a multitude of programmes, from providing vocational training for excluded and unemployed young people to woodland management and hospitality.
Nigel Lowthrop, who co-founded Hill Holt, has been keen to replicate the success of the project across the country but has found it difficult to find suitable woodland sites. However, he is confident that this will soon change.
“Local authorities who own woodlands increasingly see them as a liability because they can no longer afford to manage them and they fail to recognise the added value that we can get out of them,” he says.
Already, Lowthrop is involved in the asset-transfer of the Scarborough Borough Council owned 640-acre Raincliffe Wood to a local social enterprise.
Cash-strapped local authorities are also providing other opportunities for woodland-based social enterprises. Chiltern Rangers Community Interest Company was formed last year as the result of a spin-out from Wycombe district council. The council had run an in-house woodland management service until budgetary issues forced them to reconsider its future. Rather than closing down the service and offering it to the private sector, employee John Shaw and a colleague were offered the chance to set up a social enterprise, which they grabbed with both hands.
Now Shaw helps to provide woodland management services across 13 sites, covering 240 acres of urban woodland. “It’s a massive win-win that has the potential of being replicated across the country,” says Shaw. “Councils save money because they reduce staffing levels and in-house costs, yet they can retain frontline service delivery in a way which keeps that local community link.”
Other social enterprises are also looking to community shares as a way of helping to fund and create new woodlands. One of the first groups to do this is theWhistlewood Common Woodland in Melbourne, Derbyshire. Last year the group raised £50,000 in community shares, which together with a grant of £52,000 from the National Forest enabled them to buy the 10-acre site, which at the time had only one tree growing on it.
“We aim to establish a new type of community woodland based on permaculture, which combines food production, forestry and education,” says Sarah Spencer from the group, which is a registered co-op and this winter planted its first 1,400 trees.
Would Spencer recommend the community share route as a viable option for others looking to fundraise for a new or existing wood? “Absolutely. We’re already giving advice to several other community groups,” she says.
Back in North Dean Wood, the rain’s just stopped and the songs of the blackbirds, willow warblers and chiff chaffs seems louder than ever. “What I love about coppicing is that you can directly manage the woodland’s ecosystem in a very beneficial way,” says Wilson. “How many other human activities have such a positive environmental impact?”
