Latest news with #woodland
BBC News
a day ago
- Politics
- BBC News
'War not over' to protect land next to ancient wood in Derby
A campaign group has promised to continue its efforts to protect a Derbyshire woodland after a developer was refused permission to build 150 homes on land City councillors voted unanimously to reject a planning application to build the homes on farmland off Lime Lane, Oakwood, next to Chaddesden Bryant, the chairperson of Friends of Chaddesden Wood group, said they are concerned developer JGP Properties Ltd could appeal against the council's decision to the Planning Inspectorate, which could grant planning permission for the said: "We are happy to have won this battle but we're not sure that the war is over." She added: "It's felt like a dark cloud hanging over us for the past two and a half years and now we face the prospect of fighting again if they choose to appeal."Planning documents submitted by JGP Properties said the development would include open spaces and green corridors to protect the woodland, which dates back to the middle ages and is a Site of Special Scientific the council voted to refuse the application after it received 1,500 objections and 150 people opposed to the development attended the planning committee hearing on 11 July. Ms Bryant said the group is now hoping to speak to the landowner and have a conversation about possibly purchasing the site from them. "Our hope is to extend the woodland by planting thousands of trees, new hedgerows, dig in ponds and putting in paths for public access," she said."This would be a huge win for biodiversity and it would protect the ancient wood into the future by securing its connection to the countryside."We will be having further discussions with our MP, Jonathan Davis, Derby City Council, the Woodland Trust and many other groups to defend the unanimous stance the planning officers have taken against building here."JGP Properties Ltd has been contacted for comment.
BBC News
6 days ago
- Business
- BBC News
Bingley campaign launched to buy Goit Stock waterfall beauty spot
A fundraising campaign has been launched to help a West Yorkshire community buy an ancient woodland and waterfall, preserving it for future of Goit Stock Wood, a newly registered charity, is aiming to raise £195,000 by mid-September to buy the 70-acre Goit Stock Wood in Harden near site, home to a spectacular 20ft (6m) waterfall, is a popular beauty spot and has been listed as an Asset of Community Value by Bradford trustee Tom Wood said: "This is a once-in-a-generation chance to protect a unique woodland and give it back to the community." He said the group had launched a business sponsorship scheme to "give local companies a simple way to get involved, and make a big difference to this community project".Businesses are urged to get behind the scheme, with sponsorship packages starting at £50.A wider crowdfunder will woodland plot for sale is currently part of the privately owned Harden and Bingley Park, which also includes a static caravan home business. Supporters will be featured on the charity's website, social media, and - if the project succeeds - on a sign in the wood. Higher-tier packages will allow individuals and businesses to sponsor a larger Wood said several local companies had already shown "a real appetite to help", and volunteers would be visiting businesses in and around Bingley over the next week."But we'd welcome support from further afield too," he added. "Every contribution brings us closer to our goal." The campaign began with a public meeting in the village of Harden in April, Goit Stock Wood was designated an Asset of Community Value and a charity application was status was granted in recent weeks, members of the charity have attended local galas in Harden, Wilsden and Cullingworth, gaining wide public support - with more events the wood is purchased, the charity said it aimed to "enhance biodiversity, create volunteering opportunities and educate visitors about the importance of protecting natural habitats".It said community ownership would ensure the woodland, which has been on sale since last year, is preserved for future generations, free from commercial exploitation or unsuitable development. Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
BBC News
7 days ago
- Business
- BBC News
Holiday park near King's Cliffe woodland set to be expanded
Plans to expand a holiday park site set in an ancient woodland have been approved. North Northamptonshire Council gave the green light on 9 July for Rockingham Forest Park, near King's Cliffe, to provide a further 64 static caravan lodges and facilities hub on the site. The park, which is located on the site of a World War Two airfield, opened in April 2021, offering 50 to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), designs included a new central facilities building, which would feature a restaurant, bar, gym, swimming pool and spa. Rockingham Forest Park said the second phase of development sought to respond to a demand for additional units and feedback from its guests. Lodges with two to five bedrooms and an additional 156 parking spaces would be provided. North Northamptonshire Council's planning authority previously objected to plans after the developer sought an extra 80 holiday lodges. Concerns were raised about the impact on wildlife, flooding, and increased traffic. The LDRS said one resident called the area a "notorious accident blackspot", but the local highways authority did not raise on behalf of the applicant, Becky Brown said: "Phase one of the Park was designed and has been built out with environmental stewardship at its core. "By granting planning permission, the Park will continue to attract visitors to the area and contribute to the local economy without having any adverse impact on the sensitive environment."The applicant said the expansion would generate 31 new full-time positions as well as several part-time Water objected to the expansion due to capacity constraints and pollution risk but said it would be acceptable if a strategic foul water strategy was submitted and approved. Follow Northamptonshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
BBC News
11-07-2025
- General
- BBC News
Housing plan on edge of ancient Derby woodland refused
A bid to build 150 new homes on the edge of an ancient woodland in Derby has been 1,500 objections were made against a scheme to put housing on farmland off Lime Lane in Oakwood, next to Chaddesden Wood.A Derby City Council planning meeting on Thursday saw councillors unanimously refuse the proposals next to the "magical" nature reserve, said the Local Democracy Reporting Wood has existed since the Middle Ages and is a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Developer JGP Properties Limited said its application would create "a sustainable and integrated new urban area within Oakwood".In planning documents, JGP said the development would "safeguard land for flora and fauna for the long-term" and would integrate open spaces and green corridors "to both protect and harmonise" with the oak fears were raised the homes would stop wildlife and water entering, harming the "irreplaceable" nature reserve, as well as impact road safety on Lime Lane and increase flooding risk in nearby Breadsall. Councillors at the meeting raised concerns over a lack of school places and GPs in the the meeting was told the city has fallen behind its five-year housing supply target, and 8,000 people are on the waiting list for affordable Peck, representing developer and applicant JGP Properties, told the planning meeting the development should be allowed as new homes are desperately needed in the 150 objectors were in the council chamber's public gallery to hear the the meeting Mid Derbyshire MP Jonathan Davies, who also voiced his thoughts in the council chamber, said: "The proposed development undermines nature and the environment."It would also come at a cost for the next generation, for whom we must be the custodians of irreplaceable sites like Chaddesden Wood."
The Guardian
10-07-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
In some UK woodlands, every young tree has died. What's going wrong?
To the untrained eye, Monks Wood looks healthy and lush in the summer sun. Hundreds of butterflies dance on the edge of footpaths in the ancient Cambridgeshire woodland, which is rich with ash, maple and oak trees. Birds flit through the hedgerows as they feed. A fox ambles through a forest clearing, before disappearing into long grass. But for a number of years, it has been clear to Bruno Ladvocat and Rachel Mailes that something is missing. In 2022, Ladvocat, Mailes and their research team from Birmingham University were out sampling when they noticed that the small trees that typically cover the woodland floor were increasingly hard to find. Today, in the dappled sunshine surrounding the largest trees, spaces that would normally be home to a mass of saplings scrambling for light are bare. This pattern is not limited to the 157-hectare (388-acre) site. From Buckholt Wood in Monmouthshire to Glen Tanar in the Cairngorms, new research across eight sites around the UK shows evidence of a deeply concerning trend: ancient woodlands are failing to regenerate. Despite having vastly different species, soil types, rainfall and temperatures throughout the year, all the sites were following the same trend: the saplings were dying. Mailes, a postgraduate researcher and co-author of the research, says: 'We could see as we were going through the forest that there wasn't a lot of regeneration coming back up. I had the sad job of crossing off all the saplings that we couldn't find or that we were finding dead. 'Across a lot of different species, they were just not coming back. It really made us think: there's a problem here. Then we ran all the data and we could see that we were right,' she says. The study, which has not yet completed the peer-review process, found that sapling mortality rate increased by 90%,from 16.2% of saplings a year on average dying before 2000, increasing to 30.8% in 2022. This means that an average sapling's chance of survival after five years has fallen from 41.3% to just 15.8%. There was also a 46% drop in the number of small trees becoming established over the same period. At two sites – Denny Wood in the New Forest and Dendles Wood on Dartmoor – no saplings at all have survived since 1995 in the sites studied. The research is based on rare long-term monitoring of the same areas of ancient woodland since 1959, which allowed researchers to monitor changes over six decades. Its findings have sparked concern about the future resilience of Britain's forests. Global heating, disease and overgrazing by deer could all be causing the loss. Drought and extreme heat have become commonplace in many forests. In addition, the rate of biomass loss has started to increase across the study sites, with a rise in mortality rates of the largest trees observed in some areas, rising from 0.5% to 0.8% a year. This means that one in every 125 of the largest trees die every year instead of one in every 200. As a result, the rate at which the woodlands are removing carbon from the atmosphere has started to fall. 'I look at this as a big worry,' says Ladvocat. 'Even in areas which are relatively open, where you would expect to see new trees coming up and more trees surviving, we see less coming up and more dying. 'These forests are in a moment that makes them more vulnerable to the challenges they are facing, such as climate change and new pathogens. If there's an external force that starts killing a lot of big trees around them, then there might not be enough saplings and small trees to replace them,' he says. Deeper into Monks Wood, we stumble across a clearing that highlights one of the many pressures in ancient woodlands: a group of ash trees, a skeletal grey, all killed off by ash dieback, a fungal disease. There is no green in the canopy, just a straight view of the blue sky above. The disease is projected to kill up to 80% of the UK's ash trees in the coming years, and the problem is so bad in Monks Wood that researchers have to wear helmets when leaving the path to protect them from falling branches. On closer inspection, many other ash trees in the woodland are suffering from the disease. Concerns about forests' ability to regenerate in a warming world are not new, but data is sparse and the subject is understudied, the researchers say. 'The conditions of these forests are not unlike those of other forest remnants across Great Britain and much of Europe. That's why it's concerning,' says Ladvocat. 'These changes may be more widespread than what we were able to detect with our current dataset.' Ladvocat and Mailes are part of Membra, a project based at Birmingham University aiming to better understand how trees retain and pass on memories of stress and how this knowledge can improve resilience and management. The researchers are looking for ways to help UK woodlands reverse this worrying trend as temperatures continue to rise, bringing yet more stress. Researchers hope they can develop methods to trigger genetic markers in seeds that make them more likely to survive. In theory, they could lead to the development of a 'bootcamp' for seedlings that could help improve forest resilience. 'There is still hope for these forests,' Ladvocat insists. 'They are still absorbing carbon; they still have lots of species that are connected to people's history. There is a possibility that this can be reversed, possibly with the help of people.' Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield in the Guardian app for more nature coverage
