Report of public meeting 19 June
Our guest speaker this month was Bruce Durham, founder of Harborough Woodland (HW)1. This community group have made a tremendous impact since their beginnings 5 years ago – you can read more about their story here2. They are also running a free training event on Saturday 28 June – details on their Facebook page3, or email info@harboroughwoodland.com
This meeting was recorded and is available to watch back on our YouTube channel4.
Present: Anissa Beale, Leonie Beale, Peter Conquest, David Garlick, Caroline Gooch, James Hadfield, Rupert Knowles, Maria Lee, Harry Mellor, Clare Robertson-Marriott, Jane Wood
Apologies: Alexina Cassidy, Jonathan Harris, Eluned Lewis-Nicholl, Mick Lorkins, Clare Slater
Introduction
BD is based in Market Harborough (MH) – he has a background as a municipal water engineer. He got involved in Transition Harborough, now Sustainable Harborough Community5 after moving to the town a few years ago. They organised a climate change protest with primary school children, including his grandchildren, shouting outside the school. This was very impactful and they felt the need to take action, which resulted in founding Harborough Woodland.
This talk is divided into three sections (How we get started; What we do; The future) with a Q&A after each section.
How we got started
Having decided to act they had to figure out what to do and chose trees mainly because they are non-political. South Leicestershire has 3-4% woodland cover - the lowest in the Midlands, and the lowest in the UK except for Cambridgeshire. The area is desperately short of trees; the county with highest coverage is Surrey at about 25%. West Northamptonshire is c10%.
Some councils are targeting tree canopy cover of 30% [JW note: WN’s Tree & Woods Strategy aims for 20%6]. The area floods, partly because of lack of tree cover, though also because MH is in a clay basin. HW have given a lot of presentations – about 30 since 2020, to anyone who would listen. That created a lot of work – the group were criticised at one meeting for not being clear about what they were doing so had to stand back and take stock. They identified Woods, Water, Wildlife and Wellness, which is now the strapline on their website1. Around the same time BD saw a presentation given by Satish Kumar7, who made the point that internationally, innovation comes from communities and business – because it’s our risk. It’s not the council’s or the government’s risk, it’s ours and our children's future.
HW started on a small scale concentrating on primary and secondary schools, and are now working with about 30 schools. This opened the way into villages and they have done a lot of work putting hedges into pub gardens. Going to schools and enthusing the students means the children talk to their families, some of whom are farmers. HW have now planted about 52k free trees since 2020 in 3 counties – Leicestershire, Rutland and Northamptonshire. They were getting far too many enquiries because they are planting trees for free, so have helped set up 6/7 sister groups. HW are running a training course on 28th June for these groups and anyone else who is interested in getting involved3.
They plant trees throughout the winter unless the weather is absolutely dreadful. Everyone who comes loves it, even those who are reluctant to start with. HW now has a core committee of 16 people including a senior executive from the Wildlife Trust, a landscape architect, and several teachers. The committee was asked why they do it and the priorities were: their own wellness, the benefit and fun they get from achieving something; education - learning lots of new things; nature and wildlife. If any of those three things had gone people would not have stayed.
HW planted 1.5k trees for free at Welland Park School, with students in the rain in January, and the headteacher said he had never seen them so motivated. The head organised a second event, this time bringing in primary school students as well. This is ‘community magic’ - getting a bunch of people together to do something, enjoying it, and providing benefits to them, the landowner, preventing flooding, and more.
Q&A
What size trees do you plant and what impact do they have/will they have on flood control?
The majority are whips (a few inches tall), with a few standard trees (c 2m tall) at schools. Standards need watering whereas whips don’t so the survival rate is much higher. They do an audit and go back and count them – survival rate typically 95%. Whips are easy to plant - can do about 130 per volunteer per day. The biggest job they have done was 5k in a day with 70-80 volunteers. Whips start tiny but within 6-7 years catch up with the standards. Whips are also very easy to get for free. The Woodland Trust now provides them pot grown rather than bare rooted, so there is an even better survival rate.
In terms of benefit for flood prevention – this takes about 8 years. Hedgelink8 did some research which showed that, dependent on soil type, the ground underneath 1 metre of mature hedge can retain up to 3-5 cubic metres of water. Putting in more hedges and trees has a ‘sponge’ effect and reduces the risk of flooding.
Do you use tree guards?
The trees come with tree guards and canes. Most guards (because it’s much cheaper) are either PVC or polypropylene, so HW collect them up afterwards. The polypropylene ones can be recycled, the nearest recycling point to MH is the Allerton Project on Leics/Rutland border9. If the area is completely fenced or there is no evidence of rabbits they have planted without guards but the bark on young trees is like candy to wildlife!
What we do and examples of projects
BD met Sam Village, then working at Leicestershire County Council and now National Tree Warden Scheme Coordinator for the Tree Council, who suggested they get into Natural Flood Management (NFM). Flood prevention is a big driver for planting new trees. Being flooded is devastating – the average UK insurance claim is £60k. There are 2,300 properties at risk of flooding in MH; the town got flooded a lot but no one really knew why. There is no town council, and when HW started there were no tree wardens, flood wardens or river wardens - they now have several of each, all volunteers. They are reducing the flooding in MH which is the second most at risk town in Leicestershire after Loughborough. Most people like trees so it’s a soft target politically.
Trees are a big win in lots of ways in addition to flood management:
- Wildlife - oaks and willows have the biggest collection of wildlife in them.
- Shade; in urban areas there is a 20-degree temperature difference under a tree vs in the sun.
- Studies in Japan have shown trees help recovery from illness.
- They are very visible - people can drive past, see them and feel proud if they were involved.
From a flooding point of view, the biggest risk in MH is flash flooding not river flooding. Combined sewers can’t cope with the volume of rain.
After dry weather, a tree is dry and sitting waiting to collect the rainwater. This slows the flow of water into sewers and waterways. Problems come with peak flows - the river level or surface water gradually increases and then there is a sudden peak. That’s where trees can make a difference.
Trees need mycorrhizal fungi to survive and in return the trees give the fungi sugar. HW have been working with farmer Angus Clark at Waterloo Cottage Farm10. They have put hedges into the fields where he mob grazes longhorn cattle i.e. moves them on to new grass every day. The hedges provide the grass with sugar so there is a higher growth rate next to a hedge.
Something rarely mentioned is the 'sponge' capacity underneath a tree. The root structure of a tree is the same size as the top growth. In summer clay soil shrinks away from the tree roots, creating a conduit for flood water to get deep into the ground. Clay is impermeable – like a sheet of plastic when wet and when dry the cracks fill up but then the water runs off. Trees create gaps and break the clay up, enabling the soil to hold 3-5 tons of water under 1m of hedge. One study found that 50-100 tons of water can be held underneath a mature oak tree.
There is a 25% increase in flood risk in the UK and it’s not just houses in low-lying areas - in MH houses on hills flood.
Projects
Work in schools led to opportunities through friends of friends, mostly farmers. HW are totally customer focused. Many charities don’t really understand what a customer is, perhaps their volunteers or members? HW’s work for landowners is highly focused to help them achieve what they want to do.
Farmers have been abused for generations by various governments and government agencies, getting mixed messages from departments like the Environment Agency. So HW quietly go and talk to grumpy farmers - some are lovely, some are difficult and have very heavy workloads. In many cases they have started with farmers by filling hedge gaps; when someone drives their car into a hedge, the car is covered by insurance but the hedge isn’t. This is a good way to open the door and start building a relationship – it creates trust. Currently there is almost no trust in government organisations.
Start with gap filling hedges, then move on to other things such as planting a copse and opportunities for NFM. They are now looking at potential opportunities for reedbeds to clean outflow from sewage works, which would be paid for by Anglian Water.
HW have been involved in creating 2 FWAG (Farming & Wildlife Advisory Group11) ponds paid for by Natural England – these are for Great Crested Newts, are very large and they are free.
They have organised for the Hawk and Owl Trust to put up free owl boxes – anything the farmer wants they will try to arrange - wildlife surveys too for some farmers.
The key thing is that through building trust and doing the work for nothing, HW are creating a relationship. Building trust with schools builds up trust through the community, and all local farmers tend to know each other so that leads to further introductions.
Q&A
Who is ‘we’? Where do you get your volunteers from?
Facebook is brilliant, they have 700 members of the HW Facebook group. Word of mouth has attracted lots of people who like what the group are doing. WhatsApp groups are very useful for keeping in touch. There are 16 committee members who do most of the work.
Some local companies provide support for events e.g. Anglian Water sent 8 senior execs to support a NFM project which AW mostly funded near Smeeton Westerby. They enlist a lot of children.
Are you the driver of this?
Yes, but less so now. BD used to be chair but had to step back for health reasons. He has handed over the role of chair to his daughter in law Kimberley Durham who is a Doctor of Biology.
In one of the presentations BD gives there is a cartoon showing various tsunamis hitting us –the financial crisis, Covid, climate change, with the final one, biodiversity loss, being the biggest of all.
A lot of people who understand what is going on are quite angry – why does it take so long for agencies to respond to a proposal? Because they are underfunded and under-resourced; it’s the fault of the system not the individuals. HW are working with national groups to build community capacity. Councils like Leicestershire County Council are broken; communities can do easy things like training people how to report a blocked road drain.
What about insurance if people are working on someone else’s land?
HW is a volunteer group but run like a business. By law volunteers are employees, so you have the same responsibilities. They have Public Liability and Employers Liability insurance through the RHS, which costs about £100 pa.
They audit all the jobs they do so they can learn. Because there’s no money involved it’s possible to be more flexible. There’s no need to bid, so no need to manage tendering, quotes, or payment. They have had some donations from landowners; some are very wealthy, and some people say HW shouldn’t be working for them for free. One landowner they have done two projects for is director of a large international bank. When a 54 hectare area of land came up for sale he helped advise them on raising funds and now Harborough District Council are buying it as a public park. This brilliant initiative originated in the community.
Do you manage the trees after they’ve been planted?
Auditing is very important. HW have someone who manages this very diligently. They do some weeding and collect the tree guards. They do a lot of survey work during the summer when they can’t plant trees. The planting season is now really November-February (used to be March) as the weather gets warm so early. They haven’t yet done much knocking up (managing woodland), as the trees they have planted are not old enough yet.
They have done some hedge laying too – have 3 hedge-layers.
When digging out FWAG ponds – who provides the machinery?
It’s all part of the project provided by FWAG, and paid for by the Environment Agency and Natural England. Obviously need permission from the landowner and planning permission too (which FWAG organise).
These are not flood management ponds, they are for newts, which travel about 2 km so need big ponds in a network.
On flooding and the future – HW have learnt from very experienced groups elsewhere in the UK on tree planting and on flooding.
There are now local Flood Hubs in MH and surrounding villages – it’s all about self help and learning from others. They have just set up a Midlands Flood Action Group on Facebook12 so communities who may be isolated can share learning and help each other.
The future
Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS) are currently being rolled out for each county – these set out where we need trees, hedges, ponds etc. Under the Environment Act LNRS has higher priority than planning or environmental land management for farmers so it is a crucial piece of legislation.
The Midlands Forest Network13 was launched recently as a joint project between the Midlands Engine, the National Forest Company and the Woodland Trust. This aims to increase woodland cover across the whole area (Welsh border to Lincolnshire) from 7.5% to 19%. HW are part of the forum helping to steer this. It’s early days but it should attract government funding in due course. It’s all about community mapping and identifying priority areas.
Their experience over 5 years is that nothing happens unless the community are involved and community landowners say yes. Government and UK law at the moment is there to stop things happening. Lead local flood authorities are focusing on a small number of large jobs as these are easier to justify than a lot of small jobs so local problems in villages get ignored. It can take 3 years to get someone to come and talk to you.
When communities own the risk and get involved this makes change happen. The Smeeton Westerby NFM scheme which cost £1.5-£2m, mostly paid for by the Environment Agency and the District Council, was started by HW after a farmer sent them a picture of him standing in the middle of a flooded field. They got the Rivers Trust and the Environment Agency involved and two years later the river has been relandscaped and new ponds created, as well as 2.5k trees planted. It’s called the Smeeton Westerby Nature Project and you can visit it14. 2 landowners were involved across 4.5 hectares of land – this all came from HW creating an opportunity.
What Satish Kumar said is that innovation comes from community and businesses because we are the ones with the risk – nothing happens without support from community and community landowners.
Q&A
The River Nene runs through Northampton, there was a major flood one Easter a few decades ago. How can I make the link to put the risk in front of people in Northampton to get them involved? Billing Aquadrome floods often but tends to get ignored.
BD can supply a presentation. He recommends going out to schools, WIs, gardening groups etc. – this opens the door. People's desire to get involved can be driven by flooding, biodiversity loss, grandchildren’s future…
HW are working with the Litter Wombles, who are now reporting or clearing blocked road drains which can make a big difference in the event of flash flooding.
There ought to be a Flood Action Group15 in Northampton. Look at the long-term flood risk information from the Environment Agency16.
Climate action groups are important. Anyone who will listen to you - Hindu and Muslim action groups in Leicester have been out planting trees with HW. Keep banging on doors!
How do you decide where the rows of trees or the hedge goes? What expertise do you have in this?
HW are not specialists, they started 5 years ago with very little knowledge and just did research, contacted the Tree Council and the Woodland Trust for information. A lot depends on the landowners; farmers mostly know what they want in terms of species and location. Private landowners may be less sure so HW are very lucky to have a landscape architect on board who provides advice on this. She was found through contacts.
Volunteers do what they want to do when they can do it, HW has a policy of no ‘bullying’ whatsoever, their culture is that people do what they are motivated to do.
HW have been involved in setting up Northamptonshire Community Woodland Volunteers16 who have pioneered a Dutch scheme, MoreTreesNow, in the UK. This involves harvesting self-sown trees that wouldn’t survive and replanting them somewhere else. HW are talking to the Midlands Forest Network about this and getting the scheme rolled out nationally. There’s no cost and no risk of pests and diseases as they are all local trees.
Where can you get free trees?
- Up to 950 from The Conservation Volunteers (TCV)18.
- The Woodland Trust19; they have a partnership with Leicestershire County Council, who have given HW about 30k trees. The Woodland Trust have a target of getting 700k trees into the ground.
- National Highways – HW get 6k a year from them.
- Donations from people who grow their own, and from nurseries who get let down and would otherwise end up burning the trees.
It’s all about sharing knowledge and resources across groups.
Slow the Flow group in Calderdale have really helped HW and their advice was that the Number 1 priority is social media. Organising yourself so it’s fun is also key.
Wherever your community is, it is your local knowledge that’s important, for example, who to talk to at a school. Friends of friends and local knowledge are really powerful tools, which the ‘authorities’ don’t have access to. If you’re motivated, your enthusiasm is contagious and spurs others into action.
DONM
Thursday 17 July - Ruth Rolls, WNC Local Nature Recovery Officer, will talk to us about the West Northamptonshire Local Nature Recovery Strategy, which is due out for consultation soon.
No meeting in August
Back on Thursday 18 September with Mike Reader, MP for Northampton South.
References
1. https://harboroughwoodland.com/
2. https://carboncopy.eco/initiatives/harborough-woodland
3. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064854395392
4. https://youtu.be/14AreokwG_o
5. https://www.sustainableharboroughcommunity.co.uk/
6. https://www.westnorthants.gov.uk/tree-and-hedgerow-protection/tree-and-woods-strategy
7. https://www.resurgence.org/satish-kumar/
9. https://tubex.com/sustainability/tree-shelter-collection-recycling-programme/
10. https://waterloocottagefarm.co.uk/
11. https://www.fwageast.org.uk/
12. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1000737854950095/
13. https://midlandsengine.org/home-green-growth/midlands-forest-network/
14. https://www.facebook.com/Smeeton.nature.project
15. https://thefloodhub.co.uk/community/
16. https://www.gov.uk/check-long-term-flood-risk
17. https://www.facebook.com/groups/northamptonshirewoodlandcommunityvolunteers/
18. https://www.tcv.org.uk/i-dig-trees-free-trees/
19. https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/plant-trees/schools-and-communities/