New community woodland taking shape near Billington
Lead PR Manager
Work is well underway on a new community woodland planned for Billington in Lancashire.
Named Swindells Wood and owned by the Woodland Trust, schools and communities will be invited to get involved and plant trees at the 8.47 hectare site throughout the autumn. These will all be native broadleaf species that will link and buffer pockets of existing woodland.
Thanks to over £9,000 of funding from Lancashire Environmental Fund, work has been completed on entranceways, gates and a new pedestrian footbridge connecting the main footpath into the site.
The land for the project, off Whalley Road, was gifted to the Woodland Trust by the Peel Bank Woodland and Conservation Trust, with the late Gordon Swindells - its founder - planting much of the existing woodland.
Paul Bunton from the Woodland Trust said:
“It will be really fitting to continue Gordon’s legacy by planting trees with the local community this autumn. The woodland will be named Swindells Wood in recognition of Gordon and the pioneering work he did for native woodland and the natural environment.”
Elizabeth Morgan, fund manager at the Lancashire Environmental Fund said:
“The access improvements at Swindells Wood have been a great project for us to support. Now the entranceways and bridge have been installed, it will make it much easier for the local community to access the area for the tree planting and to enjoy the woodland as it matures over the coming years. It will be fantastic to see how the area develops in the years to come."
Notes to editors
For more details about this release contact Andy Bond in the Woodland Trust press office on 07725480434.
About the Woodland Trust
The Woodland Trust was established in 1972 and is now the UK's largest woodland conservation charity, with more than 500,000 members and supporters.
With a vision of a world where woods and trees thrive for people and nature, today the Trust owns and cares for more than 1,000 woodland sites, covering around 33,000 hectares.
The Woodland Trust has three key aims:
- protecting the UK's rare, unique and irreplaceable ancient woodland
- restoring damaged ancient woodland, nurturing precious pieces of our natural heritage back to life
- establishing new native trees and woods to create healthy, resilient landscapes for people and wildlife.
Access to all Woodland Trust woods is free so everyone can experience the physical and mental benefits of trees.
About the Lancashire Environmental Fund
The Lancashire Environmental Fund (LEF) is a partnership between SUEZ Recycling and Recovery UK Ltd., Lancashire County Council, The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside and Community Futures.
The Fund has distributed over £25 million of Landfill Communities Fund (LCF) grant support to community and environmental projects which benefit the environment and people of Lancashire since its start in 1998. The Fund is supported financially by SUEZ Recycling and Recovery UK Ltd., Lancashire County Council and various third party funders.
The Landfill Communities Fund is regulated by ENTRUST.
For other grant and funding opportunities across Lancashire please visit Lancashire County Council 4 Community.
About Peel Bank Woodland and Conservation Trust
Peel Bank Woodland and Conservation Trust (formerly called The Peel Bank Urban Woodland Trust) was established in 1989 by Gordon Swindells, the then managing director of an engineering company located at the Peel Bank Works in Church, Accrington, Lancashire.
At the time it was a visionary project to research and develop a means of using photosynthesis by trees to reduce the impact on the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and other carbon gases, released by the factory. It is now an independent, registered charity, which manages over 24 acres of newly planted woodland, ancient woodland and a small amount of grazing land over two sites in the Ribble Valley and Hyndburn areas. The sites are now kept as havens for wildlife and as an environmental resource for local people.