If You Go Down to the Woods

The Capital Woodlands Project

By Wendy Brewin

Brief overview

The Capital Woodlands project was established by Trees for Cities to:

• raise appreciation of London's woodlands
• increase public benefit and participation in woodlands
• demonstrate good practice by undertaking access and biodiversity reviews and through community consultation and training

The sites

Six 'flagship' woodland sites were chosen throughout London to work towards these goals: Birch and Rowdown Woods (London Borough of Croydon), Claybury Woods (London Borough of Redbridge), Coldfall Woods (London Borough of Haringey), Morden Park (London Borough of Merton – not to be confused with Morden Hall Park), Peabody Hill (London Borough of Lambeth, a site owned by the Peabody Trust), Scadbury Park (London Borough of Bromley).

The sites were all different in their landscapes but had similar problems such as littering, fly-dumping, misuse by quad bike/motorbikes, vandalism and the perception of ‘the fear factor’, which meant that they were all underused by their local communities.

Our role

The Sensory Trust was asked to undertake community consultation to find the barriers that prevented people from using the woodlands. We were also looking at how to encourage a broad section of people into the woods.

The results of these sessions, together with site inspections was to help each site manager produce an Access Plan. This would reflect the current concerns of both the managers and the local people and show how these could be addressed. Most importantly any changes must be made within the allocated budget and work together with the management and conservation plans already in place.

How we did it

Initially we met with each manager on site, discussed their ideas and priorities for improving access and encouraging a wider audience. Then we carried out access audits of each site.

Secondly we consulted with local community groups about the various barriers that people may face which either prevent them from visiting a site, or from having the same quality of visitor experience as anyone else.

We worked with socially-excluded and under-represented people in particular, involving disability groups, minority ethnic communities, older people, youth groups and schoolchildren. We also talked to woodland users on site, such as dog walkers, parents with young children and Friends groups.

We used various ‘tools’ for the community consultation to be able to reach more people. These included user and non-user surveys, place mapping, and focus groups.

The results

All the work done so far has gone into a Heritage Lottery Fund bid. The results of this will be known in late September/early October. If the bid is successful the site managers can incorporate the recommended changes into their management and biodiversity plans.

The project is managed by ‘Trees for Cities’ in association with the Greater London Authority, Forestry Commission, BTCV, English Nature, London Wildlife Trust, Peabody Trust and five London Authorities.

For more information about projects like this visit the Trees for Cities website.

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