Freeman’s Wood are searching for volunteers to help with local nature

Freeman’s Wood is searching for a group of volunteers to help plant Black Poplars, Britain’s rarest native tree.

In a post on Facebook, volunteers of any experience level are invited to the join sessions.

The trees have been donated by Lancaster University, as part of a long-established collaboration between the university and the charitable organisation that owns the site, the Friends of Freeman’s Wood.

Freeman’s Wood is a 27-acre woodland and public green space in Lancaster’s Marsh area near the River Lune. Following a legal dispute to save the area from development, the land was purchased by the Friends of Freeman’s Wood in 2023 using money raised by the local population and the university’s Community Benefit Fund, ensuring the space remains open to the public.

Alongside benefitting Lancaster’s biodiversity, Freeman’s wood aims to promote community engagement with nature. It regularly hosts community volunteering opportunities such as this one, as well as providing use of the area to local groups.

The session will be led by Ian Procter and Jon Barry, and will meet at the new accessible path finger-post located at the What Three Words owls.feel.crest. The site can be accessed using two accessible routes (marked below on the map in yellow), one on New Quay Road and the other via the footpath adjacent to the woods. Alternatively, there is a quicker route labelled in red from Willow Lane that crosses through Coronation Field toward the Lucy Brook entrance.

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via Facebook

Volunteers who own a pair of thick gloves and a spade are encouraged to bring them, however the session leaders will be able to provide a small number of these.

Alongside the planting, they aim for a small number of volunteers to help make changes needed for future projects in the wood by widening the New Quay Road entrance path for maintenance vehicle access, and by removing wire fencing from the wood’s perimeter.

Anyone interested in the latter of these two tasks will need to bring suitable pliers, wire-cutters and hammers, as well as thick gloves.

To look out for the next volunteer session, the Facebook page can be joined here.

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