Community forests in England

England's community forests are afforestation-based regeneration projects[1] which were established in the early 1990s.[2] Each of them is a partnership between the Forestry Commission and the Countryside Agency, which are agencies of the British government, and the relevant local councils.

Most of the designated areas are close to large cities and contain large amounts of brownfield, underused and derelict land. When the forests were created the average forest cover in the designated areas was 6.9%, and the target is to increase this to 30% over about 30 years. As most of the land is in private ownership the schemes rely mainly on providing landowners with incentives to plant trees. However the forests contain areas of publicly accessible open land, and increasing public access is one of the objectives.

The table below lists the community forests. As some of them straddle county boundaries they are listed by region and town or city.

Forest Region City Area Website
Forest of Avon Bristol and Avon Bristol 221 square miles (570 km2)
Great Western Community Forest Swindon and surrounding area Swindon 168 square miles (440 km2)
Greenwood Community Forest West Nottinghamshire Nottingham 161 square miles (420 km2)
Forest of Marston Vale Bedford to Milton Keynes Bedford 61 square miles (160 km2)
Forest of Mercia Staffordshire and West Midlands Birmingham 92 square miles (240 km2)
Mersey Forest Merseyside and north Cheshire Liverpool 420 square miles (1,100 km2)
City of Trees Greater Manchester Manchester 492 square miles (1,270 km2)
Humber Forest East Riding of Yorkshire, Kingston upon Hull and North Lincolnshire Hull 1,283 square miles (3,320 km2)
Thames Chase Bruntwood, Barking and Dagenham, Havering, Thurrock and Essex London 40 square miles (100 km2)
White Rose Forest Leeds City, North and West Yorkshire Leeds 4,124 square miles (10,680 km2)

See also

References
  1. http://www.communityforest.org.uk/
  2. "Escape to the city". The Guardian. 2005-11-09. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2023-02-15.
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