What can be achieved with Co-op Local Cause funding ?

Many projects to maintain and improve Norsey Wood are conducted by a volunteer Working Party under the direction of the Countryside Ranger. However, improvements are limited to what can be achieved at minimum cost.

The Norsey Wood Society have been successful in an application to be included as a ‘Local Cause’ in the Co-op Local Community Fund until end-October 2019.  This means that 1.0% of eligible spending by Co-op members who nominate the Norsey Wood Society as their Local Cause at any Co-op in the UK accrues directly to the Society.

If sufficient funding becomes available from the Co-op Local Causes programme the Society intends, firstly, to purchase map boards to be installed at the main pedestrian entrances to enhance visitors’ confidence about exploring beyond the main paths.  (These will be similar to the metal lectern-style entrance boards already installed in Mill Meadows.)  They will cost at least £3,500.

We have embarked on a project to rejuvenate Norsey Meadow to create grassland and hedgerow habitats that complement the existing woodland thereby increasing biodiversity.  In the first phase we have already planted new hedgerows using ‘whips’ (tiny saplings) supplied by the Woodland Trust.  The Working Party can clear bramble and scrub, improve the bank alongside Norsey Close with Wild Flowers for pollenators and butterflies, and conduct limited tree thinning.  The Council’s mowing regime will continue.  However, a professional contractor must be employed next Autumn if we are to achieve our ambition to increase the area of open grassland with a few larger trees.  This will allow cattle to be reintroduced to the meadow in Summer.

Future projects include improving the picnic areas in the Wood and managing our ponds.  Creating a Pond Management Plan starts with a professional survey conducted by experts who have to be paid for.  If the Co-op Local Causes can fund one, two or even three of these projects it will be amazing.

In the longer term we would like to install Information Boards in the wood covering topics such as our Dormice, butterflies, fungi, ponds and amphibians, trees and coppicing, and the history of Norsey Wood.