Intro
The Woodland Skills Centre is a not-for-profit Social Enterprise company, Warren Woods Ltd. We are lucky to have many wonderful facilities available that allow us to work productively and meaningfully with many people and communities in the North East of Wales. We have two sustainable carbon negative timber frame buildings, workshops, allotments, heritage orchard and polytunnels. There is a small caravan site and campsite, 17 allotments, arboretum, wildflower meadows, apiary, tree nursery, market garden, small farm and polytunnels.
Full permissive access to the 40-acre woodlands site has been granted by the Family Trust whom own the land. We are leaders in Social Forestry; also known as Social Prescribing. This means we use the natural environment to provide work and enjoyment opportunities for all people including those with complex needs and disabilities. We run alternative sources of education in the outdoor environment for pupils that are not flourishing or thriving at school, as well as forest schools for all.
History
The 50 acres of the Warren Woods were bought by the Waterfield family in 1978 and are now in a Family Trust to preserve the woodlands for the future. At the time of purchase there were: 21 acres of self-sown woodland dating from about 1945 (which has been converted to coppice with standards); an old sandpit of some 17 acres, the bottom of which was full of gorse with the banks covered in birch (now planted up with native hardwoods with a lot of hazel coppice stands); 2 small conifer plantations (converted to native hardwoods); a small plantation of oak and beech; a PAWS site (Plantation on Ancient Woodland Site) planted with Norway spruce and beech (now in conversion to native broadleaved woodland); about 6 acres of rough grazing; some redundant pole barns. What characterised all the plots was that they had not had any management for many years.
Management objectives
From the first there were 3 objectives – all equal:
Social: The woodland is in the AONB and adjoins the Offa’s Dyke Path. We want it to look good both from within the woodland and from afar. We want it to be enjoyed by as many people as possible up to the level which the woodland will sustain.
Biodiversity: We want the woodland to support as many as possible of the species you would expect to find in a woodland like this – so no exotic imports and work to create and maintain a range of habitats.
Economic: The woodland needs to pay its way. We need to understand what it can produce that has a market value and produce enough, without compromising the other two objectives, to at least break even.
Social
The main way we achieve this objective is through having the Woodland Skills Centre on our site. The Centre is run by a community-owned Social Enterprise company, Warren Woods Ltd, and has buildings and workshops on site and uses the woodlands, workshops, allotments and polytunnels paying a daily site fee. There is full permissive access to the woodlands. We also have a small caravan site, 17 allotments, a heritage orchard, arboretum, wildflower meadows, apiary, tree nursery and polytunnels.
The work of the Woodland Skills Centre is in 3 parts:
- Courses in traditional crafts, with about 80 courses a year, courses in bushcraft and countryside management.
- Schools, children, families, youth and community with holiday club in the woods, family days, weekends and weeks, with a particular emphasis on children with additional needs and their families.
- Social Prescribing. We currently run programmes with around 12 sessions every week for adults with complex disabilities, autism, dementia, mental health problems, parents and toddlers, long-term unemployed and youngsters excluded from school.
Biodiversity
This involves much monitoring carried out by various individuals and organisations such as the North Wales Wildlife Trust and Amphibian and Reptile Conservation and a constant programme of habitat creation and habitat management.
Economic
The woodlands pay their way and produce a profit which is used to fund further developments. The site also creates significant employment. Bodfari Environmental, which does woodland management, environmental contracting and landscape work, has their base on the land and has 6 FTE. Woodland Skills Centre has 10 staff with 5 FTE. We make a point of using local suppliers wherever possible and work collaboratively with other local businesses.
