The South West’s largest new woodland in a generation
A 422 acre woodland project between Bristol and Bath and our biggest yet.
Lower Chew Forest is on a scale like nothing we’ve ever done before. We’ve committed to establish up to 100,000 trees and shrubs within a mosaic of habitats including wetlands, miles of hedgerow, and species rich grassland.
When put together with adjoining woodland, the forest will be bigger than the Downs (Clifton and Durdham) and Leigh Woods in Bristol, and twelve times the size of Royal Victoria Park in Bath.
Our vision is to create a resilient 422 acre woodland and complementary habitat site, which will bring a multitude of benefits to nature and local communities. Lower Chew Forest will be a regional exemplar hub. It will help tackle the climate emergency, improve biodiversity and reducing local flooding. It will support the green economy and provide an accessible and inclusive place for people to volunteer, learn, and stay.
Local communities are a key part of our plans. It will be a woodland powered by people, for people.
‘This is the biggest opportunity in a generation for us to turn around the critically low percentage of woodland cover in our region, and create a forest-sized woodland. The benefits of increasing this cover include helping to mitigate climate change, improving biodiversity connectivity and offering a place for people to volunteer, learn and connect with nature.”
Benefits for nature, benefits for people
Lower Chew Forest will deliver a huge range of benefits to local communities and nature recovery.
Tackling climate change, improving biodiversity: once mature, this new woodland will absorb thousands tonnes of carbon to help tackle the climate emergency. We’re creating conditions for wildlife to flourish and will improve the habitat value for wildlife by 246% by 2030.
Reducing local flooding: analysis by the Environment Agency shows this new woodland, along with leaky dams and wetland habitat, would help reduce downstream flooding in local villages, Keynsham, and Bristol.
Powered by people, for people: we will be looking to create 5km of new permissive paths on the site. As with most of our woodlands, we will be hosting year-round volunteering and community events enabling people to enjoy, learn and connect with nature.
Read more about the benefits of our woodlands.
Beyond one site
As part of our groundbreaking Landscape Recovery project, Lower Chew Forest will form part of an extensive new 680 hectare wildlife corridor and boost biodiversity connectivity across the Chew Valley.
Wick Farm is in a strategically important location in the regional Nature Recovery Network. This network will map out the best locations to create and restore wildlife-rich habitats to act as corridors and stepping stones to help our wildlife populations to grow and move.
Our plans for Lower Chew Forest have been developed in consultation with local partners and in line with regional strategies. We couldn’t have done it without their advice and support.
Our story
Read the story of how we achieved our biggest land purchase yet and the road ahead for this groundbreaking project.
FAQs
Learn more about our plans and vision for the South West’s biggest new woodland in a generation.
Where is Lower Chew Forest?
Visiting this wood
Volunteering
Lower Chew Forest is our most ambitious project yet. Creating the South West’s biggest new woodland in a generation won’t be possible without your help.
We’ll soon be calling on our amazing volunteers to help us begin planting at Lower Chew Forest in Winter 2024. Will you join us and help us make this monumental project a reality?
Register to our volunteer portal below.
Access and Events
The woodland can already be accessed through several existing footpaths and rights of way running through the site. We are exploring opportunities to increase public access through the creation of up to 5km of new woodland trails and permissive paths.
As with most of our woodlands, we will be running a range of events to help the local community connect with nature and provide educational opportunities.
Keep an eye on our Events page below or sign up to our newsletter to find out when events are announced.
Our funders
This groundbreaking project has been made possible through an ambitious partnership which brings private finance, Trees for Climate grant funding, and community and business donations together, including grant funding from the Forest of Avon Trust via their Trees for Climate land acquisition fund, backed by Defra’s Nature for Climate Fund, and a loan provided by Triodos bank.
We want to give a huge thank you to the 1000+ the generous individuals, organisations, and businesses who supported our fundraising campaign and helped us raise a phenomenal £171,955 towards the purchase of Wick Farm.
As part of our income generation to help pay back the loan from Triodos, we are currently exploring ecotourism opportunities as well as Biodiversity Net Gain credits.
