Within a few decades, if all goes well, swathes of oaks and other native British trees will tumble down the banks of the River Yealm in Devon and provide a home to owls, woodcocks, hares and butterflies as part of a new community woodland project.
There will also be an orchard planted in a place known to be favoured by bats and an area of wood pasture – a more open landscape of flower-rich meadows where animals can graze and shelter around trees and shrubs.
The woods at Wembury are being created as part of the Plymouth and South Devon Community Forest. The project involves a wide range of organisations including the National Trust, the Woodland Trust and Plymouth city council.
Over the next three years, an existing 36 hectares (89 acres) of woodland at Wembury will be expanded by 84 more hectares (208 acres), with 90,000 trees planted and two and a half miles of new hedgerows and banks added.
Richard Snow, National Trust countryside manager at Wembury, said it was the National Trust’s first major community woodland project. “It’s all about the right trees in the right place,” he said. “A carefully planned mix of native trees and wood pasture will create a lasting legacy.”
There will be more than 25 different species of native trees, with a predominance of oaks, sourced from the UK and Ireland.
As the woodland at Wembury matures, it should create new homes and corridors for wildlife including bats, hares, small rodents and barn owls. Woodcocks, redstarts and fieldfares, among many others, should also return along with rare migrating clouded yellow butterflies.
The Wembury area has long been a site of pilgrimage for artists from JMW Turner, who sketched here in 1813, and the 20th-century writer John Galsworthy, whose visit provided inspiration for elements of The Forsyte Saga. The area is also the site of an old naval gunnery school and was used during the filming of The Comic Strip Presents parody Five Go Mad on Mescalin.
It is one part of the Plymouth and South Devon Community Forest, which will stretch from the heart of the city to the edge of Dartmoor, encompassing 1,900 hectares (4,695 acres) of land to form a patchwork of different forest and woodland habitats.
Ross Kennerley, south-west regional director of the Woodland Trust, said: “UK woodland cover currently stands at 13%. We need to hit 19% if the UK is to meet its carbon net zero target by 2050.”
The project is being funded by the UK government’s Trees for Climate programme.
