Rushcliffe Borough Council (RBC) has acquired 52 acres or nearly 30 football sized pitches of land to plant over 25,000 trees and shrubs to offset carbon from its operations and keep it on track to be carbon neutral by 2030.
Wolds Wood will transform the former agricultural land at the site located adjacent to the A46 near Kinoulton, the new woodland will offset over 400 tonnes of carbon a year.
Partners met on Friday 13 February to view the site ahead of the creation that will also include meadows and wetlands with the thousands of native broadleaved and fruit trees funded by grant applications.
The project will offset 33 houses worth of the Council’s current carbon output annually and plant trees supplied by partners Greenwood Community Forest.
The site which provides a new publicly accessible larger green space also assists with the Forestry Commission’s target to increase tree cover by two per cent in England to 16.5% by 2050.
Leader of RBC Cllr Neil Clarke said: “This is another key step being taken by the Council as part of our longer-term actions to offset our operations and keep us on course to be carbon neutral by 2030.
“The transformation of this land into a new green space follows our recent announcement of Rushcliffe Woods where we are planting a further 15,000 trees and shrubs at a site in Upper Broughton.
“These new woodlands see a major step in supporting our Carbon Clever project which has been in place since 2020. It has already made considerable progress in reducing our carbon output with £5m of investment into our Cotgrave and Keyworth leisure centres and over 70% of our vehicle fleet running on electric or vegetable oil.
“We hope planting these many thousands of trees and shrubs can show local businesses how to explore offsetting their carbon operations. Promoting nature recovery and tree canopy coverage to help the Borough meet climate and ecological objectives is vital.
The site is also identified within the new Nottinghamshire Local Nature Recovery Strategy as an area that could become of particular importance for nature recovery.
Greenwood Community Forest’s Woodland Creation Officer Rachael Rickell said: “Greenwood Community Forest have been supporting landowners since 2020 by offering grants to plant trees funded by the Defra Trees for Climate programme. We have supported over 190 schemes and planted over three quarters of a million trees so far, creating 578 hectares of new woodland, so we are delighted to be able to continue to back Rushcliffe Borough Council’s projects to create new woodlands as they seek to become carbon neutral.”