A FAMILY with a Craven smallholding has created the first new woodland to arise from a landmark collaboration between the Woodland Trust and the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority.
The Hinds family from Woodhouse Farm, near Austwick, have planted nearly 5,000 native broadleaved shrubs and trees in a five hectare (12 acre) field.
The mixed native woodland has been created through a Northern Forest scheme called ‘Grow Back Greener’.
Landowners and farmers are being encouraged to make applications to the scheme, which offers significant financial incentives including upfront maintenance payments.
Kath Hinds said: “We had a lot of people walk past at the weekend and had a great reaction. Almost everybody said they couldn’t wait for the trees to grow.
“We’ve got ancient woodland, Oxenber Woods, right next to us, and the idea was that we wanted to continue that down the hillside. There is already a feeling of walking in a forest, even though the trees are so small. You get a sense of what it is going to be like.”
The Grow Back Greener scheme will help achieve an ambition, set by the Dales Woodland Forum, to create 6,000 hectares of woodland in the Yorkshire Dales National Park between 2021 and 2030.
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