Woodland Management

Does your woodland need a little TLC?

If you have a woodland that needs some attention, we’re here to help. We offer initial advice on woodland management and can create detailed management plans to ensure your woodlands flourish, benefiting both wildlife and people.

We work with landowners across the region (and surrounding areas), and so far, we’ve produced Forestry Commission-approved management plans for a whopping 850 hectares of local woodland.

Why woodland management?

  • A healthy woodland is more robust against droughts, flooding, and high winds, all of which are becoming more frequent due to climate change.
  • Proper management makes your woodland more resilient to pests and diseases, keeping it thriving and healthy.
  • Encouraging woodland regeneration helps foster stronger, more genetically diverse seedlings and allows other woodland plants and flowers to flourish, supporting the recovery of nature.
  • Health woodland grows more strongly, removing carbon dioxide from the air which in turn reduces the impact of global warming.
  • Managed woodlands yield better timber, increasing the economic value of your wood.
  • A woodland management plan helps you manage public access to your woodland effectively and safely.

Free Advice for Woodland Owners Around Bath

Since October 2018, we’ve been running the Woodland Advisory Service on behalf of the Bathscape Partnership Project. We work with woodland owners across the Bathscape area to provide free, tailored advice and support with managing their woodlands, ensuring the long-term vitality of the woodland ecosystem as a critical part of the unique Bathscape landscape.

The Bathscape Landscape Partnership, which runs from 2019 to 2014, aims to protect and preserve the landscape in the area around Bath. Its £2.2 million funding is provided by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, The World Heritage Enhancement Fund, Network Rail, Bath & North East Somerset Council and partner organisations.

The partnership’s projects will care for 80 hectares of woodland, 100 grasslands and 30 important viewpoints, and will create 12 new flower-rich meadows and survey 10 important archaeological sites.

What We Offer

Our skilled advisors provide free advice to all woodland owners, large or small, within the Bathscape area. This ranges from a one-page summary report based on a remote discussion or site visit, through to producing a full Forestry Commission approved Woodland Management Plan providing more detailed guidance on management into the future. In all cases we will reflect landowner desires and objectives and set-out practical solutions to help sustain the woodlands within this important landscape.

We can advise on:

  • Improving biodiversity
  • Managing ash dieback
  • Coppicing
  • Enrichment planting
  • Grant funding for management or planting
  • Public rights of way

 

Woodland Management Activities and Skills Days

The Forest of Avon has been managing The Retreat, a 6-hectare woodland planted at the Millennium by the Woodland Trust, since 2014. Formerly a depleted agricultural field, the land is now a haven for birds, bugs and mammals. However there is still lots to do! Planted densely at 1600 stems per hectare, the trees need thinning to encourage colonisation by new and varied flora and fauna. The high proportion of ash trees in the original planting mix has also resulted in areas of large-scale canopy loss from ash dieback.

Our work in protecting and enhancing the site includes annual thinning operations, ride mowing, coppice days, pest control, and regular site safety inspections – we’re even establishing a spring-fed pond!

We also use the site as a teaching woodland to help school groups, the local community and new woodland owners learn about woodland management.

Can you help?

As a charity, we carry out these operations unfunded and at a loss. As part of your corporate social responsibility, you could help cover those costs and allow us to keep managing this site for the future.

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