Annual Report 1

LLANGATTOCK COMMUNITY WOODLAND GROUP

ANNUAL REPORT

15 SEPTEMBER 2010 - 14 SEPTEMBER 2011

Llangattock Community Woodland Group has continued to move forward during 2010/11 and we are now applying for funding through Environment Wales to employ a Woodland Manager. This is a huge step for us, but one we are confident will secure the group’s future and help us meet key objectives including:• becoming financially sustainable by 2014 • building our volunteer base• developing local sources of high-quality, sustainable wood fuel • improving the environment around our village.

Looking back over the past 12 months we have made good progress towards these goals. Our partnerships with woodland owners continue to flourish and we are now an established part of the community, with strong links with various other groups and organisations including Llangattock Area Community Allotment Society, 1st Crickhowell and Llangattock Scouts, Brecon Beacons National Park Authority and Tidy Towns.

Key to our continuing success are our partnerships with Llangattock Green Valleys and The Green Valleys, and it’s thanks to the support of these two business-focused community interest companies that we feel able to take on the challenge of employing someone.

In addition, we have continued to make new friends locally and further afield, expanded our knowledge of woodland management, biodiversity and traditional skills, and – hopefully –become a little bit fitter along the way. We’ve also discovered the satisfaction and camaraderie that comes from being part of a productive woodland work team – especially when a hard morning’s work is followed by a well-earned cuppa in a beautiful woodland setting. I firmly believe that these benefits to wellbeing will become increasingly important to the way we develop over the next 12 months.

None of this would have been possible without the guidance of Gareth Ellis, Biodiversity Officer for the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority. His knowledge, vision and commitment to our group continues to be invaluable. Kevin Phillips and the rest of the British Waterways team are delighted with the work we have undertaken in Canalside woods, as are the private woodland owners, Helen Marks and Mitchell Field at Dan-y-Graig, and David Evans at Ty Mawr. Their trust and generosity has allowed us to get to grips with woodland management in their lovely woods.

Thanks, too, to our members and our dedicated committee, whose hard work throughout the year – in the woods, in meetings, and in front of their computers – continues to inspire the people of Llangattock and to encourage communities further afield to set up their own woodland groups.

Annual Report 2

THE HIGHLIGHTS So what exactly have we been up to in the past 12 months? The following is a snapshot of our achievements…

We produced 1 in-depth case study for Llais y Goedwig, for which the group received £500. Out of this, Jackie and Di were paid £100 each for their input on the project, although they matched this payment threefold in volunteer time. Thanks also to Simon for editing the video. The case study will have a wide readership, including the Welsh Government.

Our 2 certified chainsaw users have worked very hard for us this year. Joint felling days with the Cwmdu group’s chainsaw users have helped us achieve a lot, but we hope to give them further support by putting another volunteer through training in the coming year.

The harsh winter meant we lost 3 workdaysduring the felling season, but in total we logged 28 woodland sessions totalling over 732 volunteer hours.We also distributed c.10m3 of woodfuel to volunteers, double the amount for 2009-10.

We hosted 2 very successful community events – a Sunday Stroll & Sausage Sizzle to mark World Biodiversity Day in May, and our second annual Woodland Family Fun Day in August. Over 50 people joined us for the walk, while more than 100 parents and children attended the Fun Day, which once again was funded by Powys Environmental Partnership. This year we concentrated activities into the afternoon and added a £1/head sausage sizzle to help cover costs, and it worked very well. Big thanks to the Arts Alive team, Brecon Beacons National Park Authority’s Education Officer Francesca Bell and Tidy Towns’ Rachel Palmer for providing loads of fun activities. And special thanks to TGV’s Gareth Ellis and LCWG’s Simon Walter for helping the children make bug hotels, which were a big hit (see page 3).

35 members (up from 12 this time last year), including 6 children and teenagers. Not all of these members are active and we are currently looking at ways to increase participation, including offering more half-day and weekday work sessions.

 

www.llaisygoedwig.org.uk  1

                                                  Case study 3 

                                 Sustainable local firewood:                                  Llangattock Community Woodlands    This  case  study  charts  the  development  of  a  small community  woodland  group  in  Llangattock,  in  the heart  of  the  Brecon  Beacons  National  Park.  The group is unusual in that it grew out of a desire to find a sustainable local source of quality woodfuel for the community  –  rather  than,  as  is  usually  the  case, emerging  out  of  a  need  to  manage  an  existing community woodland asset.   As  a  result,  the  group  has  had  to  think  differently: with  no  obvious  access  to  local  woodland  at  the outset,  their key  challenge has been  finding  land  to manage.  Thanks  to  innovative  thinking  and  a proactive  approach,  they  now manage  three  small woodlands  –  20  acres  in  total  –  for  three  different landowners, and are working towards becoming fully sustainable.   Their  experience  shows  that  landowners  are receptive  to  a  voluntary  group  with  a  strong community  ethos  and  commitment  to  sustainable practices.  It  also  shows  that  small woodlands, well managed, can become a viable source of sustainable wood fuel.  Establishing  credibility,  developing  good communication,  and  adopting  a  professional approach to partnerships have all been  important  in their  success.  But  there  have  been  some  key experiences  along  the  way,  and  those  relating  to sourcing woodland,  training and  tools & equipment are  related  here.  The  case  study  also  looks  at  the experience  of  finding  funding  and  generating sustainable income, developing membership, and the importance  of  health  &  safety  as  key  parts  of  the sustainable puzzle. 

How it all began In  early  2008  the  Brecon  Beacons  National  Park Authority  (BBNPA) applied  for a place  in NESTA’s Big Green  Challenge  –  a  £1m  competition  designed  to stimulate  and  support  community‐led  responses  to climate  change.  BBNPA  came  up  with  a  raft  of imaginative  initiatives  for  reducing  CO2  emissions, ranging  from micro‐hydro  to  community woodlands. Later  that  year  they  were  selected  as  one  of  10 finalists  to  take part  in  the 12‐month  challenge,  and through a series of public meetings set about sharing their  ideas with  communities across  the Park  region. Here  in Llangattock,  these  ideas  really struck a chord 

and a small number of us decided  to get  together  to further investigate the idea of community woodlands. 

 

The situation in Llangattock Llangattock  is a  rural Welsh  community of  some 420 homes spread over five distinct areas across two sides of a valley. The heart of the village is served by mains gas, with most of the outlying homes and farms using either oil or  LPG  for heating. That  said, many people also  use  wood  (open  fires,  ranges  or  wood‐burning stoves) to supplement their heating.   The  village  is  surrounded  by  small  tracts  of  native broadleaf woodland  – mostly  hazel,  ash,  beech  and oak, with some sycamore. Almost all of this is privately owned  and  while  there  is  evidence  of  former coppicing activity, virtually all of it is now unmanaged. Some  woodfuel  is  available  locally  –  from  farmers, hedgelayers etc – but quality is hit and miss.  

Common complaints included: 

poorly seasoned  

damp from being stored outside or uncovered 

Annual Report 3

ADDITIONAL DETAILSHere are some of the other things we’ve done this year:

WORK & VOLUNTEERS• Cleared most of the rhododendron from the Canalside

woods and started work on the laurel. British Waterways has also helped control the giant hogweed infestation.

• Cleared part of the planned work area and coppiced the first hazel section. This wood is now ready for extracting.

• Felled more than 20 windblown trees at Dan-y-Graig. We are currently logging up and extracting this timber for our woodstore.

• Recruited young volunteers through the Crickhowell Volunteer Bureau Millennium Volunteer Scheme.

• Built two woodstores and now have wood seasoning in one of these.

• Collected about 6 cubic metres of quality logs from a Forestry Commission site in Chepstow (thanks to Tony and Steph Jones for negotiating this with the FC). This wood formed the bulk of our volunteer allocation earlier this year, and further collections are planned for this winter.

• Collected timber donations from two generous Llangattock residents, Miss Sankey-Barker and Mrs Susan Gray. Also logged up and extracted a windblown tree that came down in Miss Sankey-Barker’s field.

• Notched up 832 hours of volunteer time (246 skilled; 592 unskilled), including workdays, demonstrations and events, plus over 200 hours of skilled time in project management and support work for the group. This is double what we achieved last year, due to an increase in workdays and summer activities.

We demonstrated woodland skills at 2 events, the Llangattock Community Allotment Society Summer Show, and the Big Skill at Penpont, near Brecon. Both events were very useful in terms of making contacts and marketing the firewood processor. Better still, we also recruited a few new members, including Helen Alexander, the happy winner of our raffle prize!

We hired out the firewood processor for a total of 16 days – 14 days to members or other community groups (£50/day), and 2 days to private individuals (£100/day). After costs, this meant an income of £900. Many thanks to George Smith for taking such good care of the processor for us.

Annual Report 4

PARTNERSHIPS• Continued to develop strong and mutually

beneficial working partnerships with British Waterways, Cwmdu Sustainable Energy Group, The Green Valleys and especially Llangattock Green Valleys. British Waterways rewarded our commitment earlier this year with a Volunteer Recognition Award (see right).

• Our working relationship with Tidy Towns Wales has really flourished thanks to the support of local project officer Rachel Palmer. In return, we have supported the annual Keep Wales Tidy Week each September with litter and invasive species clearance events.

• Participated as lead group for TGV’s consultation day with all local community woodland groups.

• Contributed to Llangattock Green Valleys ultimately winning the British Gas Green Streets competition by involving community members and raising awareness of local wood fuel and how this can contribute to Llangattock becoming a carbon negative community.

FUNDING• Completed our Environment Wales start-up grant

at the end of March, using the remainder of the £1,000 grant to pay for banners, safety signs, and additional safety equipment including hard hats, hi-vis vests and safety spex, and to cover the cost of having the banners, signs and our woodland group leaflet translated into Welsh.

• Received a grant of £415 from Powys Environmental Partnership to fund our Family Fun Day (see right). We also received nearly £1,000 of funding ‘in kind’ from Brecon Beacons National Park and TGV (ie time contributed to the event).

• Received £500 from Llais y Goedwig for our comprehensive case study and video.• Earned £950 for the group through hiring out the firewood processor, selling beanpoles to

the allotments and proceeds from the Family Fun Day. • Completed lengthy application process to become a Registered Project with Environment

Wales. Currently applying through EW for a Management Grant which would enable us to employ a Woodland Manager.

• We are also applying for other grants, but in keeping with our aim of becoming fully sustainable, we’re thinking more about earning cash to cover our costs.

PUBLICITY• The group continues to chart its news and progress through Llangattock Green Valleys’

monthly newsletter, which goes out to more than 180 subscribers and is posted on community noticeboards in the village.

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• In addition, we’ve had several mentions in the press over the past 12 months as part of write-ups on Llangattock’s progress in the British Green Streets competition, with coverage in the Sunday Telegraph, the Western Mail and the Brecon & Radnor Express.

• We’ve also gained good press coverage for our events, which has helped ensure their success.

• And finally, our members have appeared in 2 short films – one for the Energyshare website, and one for Reuters.

LOOKING AHEADAs we enter our third felling season we are becoming increasingly ambitious. Plans for the coming year include: • Employing a Woodland/Volunteer Manager in April 2012.• Increasing our active membership by 10 during the first

half of 2012 and continuing to develop a more diverse membership, with support for young people and those with disabilities that impact on them taking part in manual activity in our woodlands.

• Processing at least 20m3 wood for sale and 20m3 for volunteers by October 2012.

• Bringing at least one more woodland under management.• Harvesting at least 40m3 of wood by October 2012 to sell to the local community. • Preparing a work plan to take us through from March 2012 to March 2013 to ensure we

meet the requirements of the management plans for each of our woodlands and reach our woodfuel targets.

• Organising a 2012 ‘Spring Watch’ event in one of our woodlands.• Coordinating wildlife surveys for spring, summer and autumn 2012.• Continuing to work through our business plan to ensure we meet our target of becoming

sustainable.• Working closely with Llangattock Green Valleys to help ensure they achieve the key goals

set out in their strategic plan.

SUMMARYThe past 12 months have been very exciting, with new ideas, new opportunities and new challenges. We’ve certainly achieved a lot – basically we doubled the amount of work we undertook this year. But this has been at a price: our volunteers have put in vast numbers of hours to get us to this point and going forward we know this is amount of effort is unsustainable – hence our decision to seek funding for a woodland manager.

That said, our group is currently looking stronger than ever, with new members joining us from Llangattock and further afield, and bringing with them a fresh energy that has revitalised the whole group.

Good woodland management is all about sustainable practices, and that is true whether we are talking about looking after trees or our members. I cannot express this strongly enough. The past two years have been all about getting to grips with skills and establishing the group in the community. Going forward, our challenge is to ensure that we, as well as our woodlands, have a strong and sustainable future.

Jackie Charlton (Chair)