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October 2003
- Report on Wivenhoe Woods On 1st October 2003 Colchester Borough Council's countryside rangers Paul Vickers and Richard Moulson guided a small party around part of the Wivenhoe Wood and Lower Lodge Farm to explain the maintenance work they plan to carry out over the next few months and to show us a little of how nature is taking its course where earlier work had been done. I went along on
behalf of Wivenhoe Town Council, Guy Ward on behalf of the Wivenhoe
Society and Mary Hignell represented the Town Council's Wivenhoe Wood
Working Party. Apart from us
invitees, several members of the general public, regular dog-walkers
mostly, but wood-lovers all, turned up as a result of notices that had
been put up in the wood itself. The
Town Council commends the Borough for reaching out in this way, rather
than just getting on with the job. Misunderstandings
such as have arisen in the past can be avoided in this way. Another
half-hectare (a little over one acre) of woodland will be coppiced this
coming winter in accordance with the 10-year rotation plan.
Concern was expressed that the rangers' preferred area is
immediately adjacent to last year's coppicing, which, although doing
nicely, is still very much open to the sky. Likewise, the
line of willows in the marshy part of Lower Lodge is to get a little more
coppice treatment. It is work
that needs to be done, because large willows tend to be unstable, but
coppicing the whole row at once would have a shocking visual impact. The
rangers agreed last year that this work would not be done all in one year
and have coppiced only one of the willows so far. The small
heathland area a hundred yards or so into the Wood from Lower Lodge, which
was cleared of brambles and other scrub last year is looking very good
indeed - full of colour even in October. Cllr. Tom
Roberts
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