Newborough People Plan

Overview

Our ongoing work and community conversations looking at how to manage Newborough National Nature Reserve and Forest in the future are continuing.

Members of the public and stakeholders are continuing to feed into the developing Newborough People Plan which will guide us and our partners in managing access, activities, the natural environment, heritage, and culture.

We would like to thank everyone who has given feedback at our open-door sessions or online, helping us gather evidence, build relationships and better understand what is happening in Newborough.

We continue to listen to your ideas, and via our survey earlier in the year and ongoing feedback since, you have told us about concerns around access and traffic, parking management, having a visible presence onsite, providing easily accessible information to help visitors make informed decisions and balancing the needs of visitors with conservation.

Suggestions gathered during this process that we need to explore further with everyone are changes to the car park offer, exploring a park and ride scheme, improving footpath and cycle access, changes to the traffic management in and around the site and consideration for a wide range of user groups such as horse riders and those with disabilities.

Supported by NRW and Isle of Anglesey County Council, Gwynedd and Anglesey Public Service Board held an interactive event on March 7 to create ideas, find solutions and foster collaboration around access and transportation in and around Newborough.

The community workshop, facilitated by development agency Cwmpas, allowed local people, businesses, community organisations, and public services to work together.

We are working together because no one organisation can solve the issue and we will keep working with the community to find solutions to improve things.

Further informal community open-door sessions will be held in the coming months and we will continue to keep members of the public informed.

This forms part of our commitment to continue to work with others and will help inform a draft version of the People Plan which will be shared with the community, offering more opportunities for you to share your views.

Work on developing the draft People Plan has continued alongside:

•         Conservation and restoration work at the site, including projects led by the Sands of LIFE team.

•         Road surface repairs in May on the site’s main access road to improve access and traffic management.

•         A moveable Mobi-Mat, made from recycled plastic, has been installed to improve access onto the beach.

•         We have been building a closer relationship with the Anglesey Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty team, working on initiatives including providing beach wheelchairs and hosting volunteer events.

•         Updated signage providing information about restrictions around dogs at the site.

•         We are continuing to work on the finalisation of our Forest Resource Plan for Newborough. Further updates about the final version of the plan will be issued this autumn.

•         Regular staff blogs have been published online to give a better understanding of the biodiversity and conservation aspects of the site. These, along with news articles about Newborough and our other work, are available on the news section of the Natural Resources Wales website.

This year visitor numbers returned to comparable pre-covid levels, and we are starting to see different patterns of usage. Traffic management was used less between May and August this year than during the same period last year.

Building a better understanding of how people use and value the site and what their needs are, will help us work with our partners on managing the site’s relationship with the surrounding community in a collaborative way.

This will allow us to ensure everyone’s experience is as good as possible whilst respecting, protecting and enhancing the natural environment, the local area, and the interests of people living and working there.

A People Plan for Newborough will work alongside other plans, working towards an integrated way of managing the site and understanding links to the wider area.

We can’t do this alone, so we are working with the community, stakeholders and key partners such as Isle of Anglesey County Council to get their views on how we can develop this plan.

Together, the aim is to shape and oversee how people interact with the site and its surroundings, while considering the impact of natural processes and climate change, and our aspiration to be a good neighbour.

We will be holding further community open-door sessions so members of the public can continue to input and share their experiences and you can keep up to date by searching for Newborough People Plan online.

If you would like to share your views with us, ask about our work or sign up to our stakeholder list you can do so at niwbwrch@cyfoethnaturiolcymru.gov.uk

You can also follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CyfNatCymGO