An Inspector Calls

Northwood Green Streets and Northwood Forest Hills have been nominated by The Mersey Forest for the Royal Forestry Society's Urban Forestry Award 2013.

The purpose of the Award is to encourage and recognise inspiring projects involving trees in any land use within urban areas. These may be in streets, parks, urban woodlands or within social housing. Entries are expected to show a strategic and innovative approach to urban tree management and regeneration.

Only 17% of England’s area is classified as urban yet 81% of the population live in our urban areas. 

Urban areas are the powerhouses of the economy yet also the most environmentally challenging. 15% of England’s woodlands are in urban super output areas, so targeting resources on these can deliver strong social, environmental and economic benefits (the triple bottom line). 

Our urban areas have a woodland cover of, on average, 8.79 %, compared to the rural areas woodland cover of 10.13%.

The Mersey Forest's projects in Northwood demonstrate clearly  how an innovative strategically planned green infrastructure strategy for Northwood has helped deliver these schemes on the ground.

Two members of the Royal Forestry Society visited the sites in May to look at how the recently planted street trees signpost visitors and residents to local shops,amenities and green spaces including Northwood Forest Hills and the Old Rough Park within Northwood.These schemes are part of an ongoing strategy to green the area and provide residents with sustainable walking and cycling routes that provide a local recreation area, contributing  to improved well being.

View our Kirkby Case Study about Northwood's street trees.

Local residents openly praised the work of those that have transformed these spaces from grey to green in as little as 3 years making Northwood as part of The Mersey Forest a more relaxed place to live..

Big Local funding for Northwood

For more information on this 10 year £1M programme go to

http://www.northwoodbiglocal.co.uk/

Its BIG and its LOCAL to NORTHWOOD!!!

Now that The Mersey Forest has helped deliver Northwood Green Streets and Northwood Forest Hills in partnership with Knowsley Council and housing responsible provider Knowsley Housing Trust, the focus of this programme will be social cohesion.

Get involved in a conversation soon  http://www.northwoodbiglocal.co.uk/gallery/

One resident commented about the improved green spaces in the area:

'lived in Northwood for 53 years and seen a lot of changes.They are mostly for the better.There is now a park at the back of my house and the parks are better looked after than they have ever been'

But despite many improvements there is still a need identified for more childrens play and trees and wildflowers.This is because the area is really quite big and funding has only stretched so far to date.

Northwood Forest Hills - the lake with fishing pegs.

The lake was stocked with over 1000 certified fish, and is home to herons, ducks and frogs as well as a range of wildflowers.Paths take you from four entrances around the site via mainly fully accessible routes.The eastern entrance is here at the end of Warrenhouse Rd at the junction of Simonswood Lane whilst others are located on Trecastle Rd, by foot on the eastern end of Bramcote Rd and Bramcote Close.

The main funding for Northwood Forest Hills came from The Mersey Forest's Setting The Scene For Growth programme funded through The Forestry Commission's Newlands Programme.Other funding came from Marks and Spencer and the Community Spaces fund through the Big Lottery amongst other sources.