Commemorative woodland at Brownhill – Coed Abermarlais

Overview

Update February 21

During the current planting season (November – April) we will be looking to create further opportunities for people to come and get involved and help plant trees in the commemorative woodland area at Coed Abermarlais (formerly referred to as Brownhill)  We will share these details in due course – please keep an eye on this project page and our social media channels for more information.

Update 01/ 08/ 2023

Having listened carefully to the feedback from our public consultations, Abermarlais has been divided in to three distinct areas, each prioritising different objectives:

• A conservation space for wildlife to flourish
• A woodland space for commemoration that is fully accessible
• A growing space to deliver sustainable opportunities for food, trees, and nature.

Below you will find a summary of our progress for each area over the last six months:

Woodland space

Volunteer planting at community orchard

Back in the spring we worked with Tir Coed to host some volunteer planting events in the commemorative woodland area of the site.

Our volunteers planted several thousand trees, including heritage apple varieties in the community orchard area – huge thank you to everyone that got involved!

Despite an extremely wet few days during the volunteer planting sessions, the rest of the spring remained very dry.

Whilst this can lead to some problems, we’re pleased  that the saplings have coped with the weather conditions and the oak and hornbeam clusters mostly look quite well. This is despite the fact that at first glance it might not look like there are any trees there at all, surrounded as they are by tall grass. You’ll notice that we did not use tree guards and we have not controlled the surrounding grass with herbicide. It is an NRW commitment to reducing chemical and plastic in our woodland operations, that led us to approach the planting in this way.

Finalising the designs for public access

We are currently working with a consultant who is finalising the detailed designs that will help us ensure safe access for visitors and residents to the woodland and conservation areas of the site.

This includes installing safe access routes from the main road and accessible paths around the commemorative woodland area. We hope to start work on the ground in the autumn and will share the detailed plans when they are finalised.

Growing space

Selective tree cover

Alongside volunteer planting in the woodland space we also began introducing some more selective tree cover in the growing space. This was in the form of wide shelterbelt hedgerows, planted along existing and historic hedge lines on the most improved areas of the site.

The intention of this is to benefit the future agricultural productivity of those areas, stabilising the soil, improving drainage and providing shelter and shade for livestock that will use the site in future.

Partnership opportunity

We are currently carrying out further consultation to develop a partnership for the long-term management of the growing area of the site, which will help us to explore opportunities for sustainable food production alongside increased tree cover and conservation management.

We hope to work with a partner/s to develop a valuable educational resource, trialling and demonstrating how food growing, trees and timber growing and wildlife can thrive together in a farming business model as our climate changes. Future planting, site design and management will be co-designed along with partners.

If this sounds interesting and you’d like to be involved, please contact: woodlandcreation.hub@cyfoethnaturiolcymru.gov.uk

Conservation Space

Monitoring wildlife

As with the woodland space, we are currently finalising plans to ensure that visitors can safely access the conservation space. It is important that we design this in a way that minimises any disturbance to wildlife. As part of the design work we are commissioning baseline surveys to understand how species are currently using the site, so that we are able to monitor and react to any changes over years to come.

What is happening next?

Upcoming volunteer planting session

Over the upcoming planting season (November – April) we will be looking to create further opportunities for People to come and get involved and help plant trees in the commemorative woodland  areaof the site. We will share these details in due course – please keep an eye on this project page and our Social media channels for more Information.

We will also keep this page up to date with information on how the partnership work is developing. If you’d like to be informed directly of any opportunities to get involved then please do contact us on the email address above.

Update 19 January 

We recently held a consultation to ask people for their feedback to help inform the next steps in shaping the design for the commemorative woodland at Brownhill, Carmarthenshire and how we can achieve the proposed objectives for the site.

Thank you for getting in touch to share your feedback with us, whether that was through our online consultation, the drop-in event at Llansadwrn reading room, or by contacting us directly.

Having listened carefully to the responses, we are now pleased to be able to share the design of the woodland with you, how we will achieve the objectives and the next steps of our plans. 

What will the site at Brownhill look like?

Based on the feedback from our initial consultation in March, we set out a proposal to divide the site in to three distinct areas, each prioritising different objectives, outlined below:  

A conservation space for wildlife to flourish

A woodland space for commemoration that is fully accessible

A growing space to deliver sustainable opportunities for food, trees, and nature.

As a result of the feedback we received through our recent consultation, we have outlined our designs for what the site will look like and how we will achieve the objectives for each area below:

Area one - Conservation space

Objectives:

1. Riparian and wet woodland with minimum intervention primarily to benefit biodiversity and to promote a healthy active floodplain.
2. Identify areas where the public can safely access the river, causing minimal disturbance for wildlife to flourish.
3. Improve access points to the river and ensure that anglers can continue to access the space safely.

How we will achieve this:

• Initially the plan for this area is minimal intervention. The area will be allowed to continue to develop riparian woodland and to allow for natural processes.
• A new fence will be erected along the eastern boundary to clearly distinguish between this and the woodland space.
• The footbridge will be restored at point A (shown on the map below) to allow anglers and the public safe access to the riverside.
• An informal walking route will be established to allow the public to quietly enjoy the rover and wildlife. Signage will inform people how they must behave to be safe and to care for the area.

The  following maps set out the opportunities as described above.

Area two - Woodland space

Objectives

1. Create a native broadleaf woodland that maximises habitat diversity.
2. A contemplative and commemorative space that is accessible to all.
3. Create a green resource for community use.

How we will achieve this:

• The woodland planting has been designed to enhance the existing features of the site, including the pond and watercourses.
• Substantial open space will be retained to provide open and edge habitat and maintain an open feel to the landscape.
• Planting will consist of a wide range of broadleaves species and shrubs, including oak. Hornbeam, small leaved lime, wych elm, hazel, hawthorns, guelder rose, crab apple, eild service tree, walnut and black poplar.
• The existing field entrance (shown at point A on the map below) will be upgraded to allow safe access to the site for visitors and operations on the site. A car park will also be created, we are currently working with consultants on the detailed design of a car park and associated planning process.
• An opening corridor will be maintained at point B (as marked on the map below) along the route of the Roman road, to create a linear feature. Interpretation will be placed to provide context to the history of the site.
• A bridge will cross the Marlais at point C (as marked on the map below) for public and operational access, with a smaller foot bridge also at point D to allow for a circular walk around the route to be installed.
• Benches will be placed at E and F and near the entrance, fruit and nut trees will be planted to create a blossoming feature in the Spring and provide fruit for visitors and the community to pick.

The  following maps set out the opportunities as described above.

Area three - Growing space

In response to initial feedback in this round of consultation we focussed discussion around  the ‘growing space’ to address the key concern raised around displacing agricultural land with woodland.

We presented a number of ‘options’ for increasing tree cover alongside continued agricultural production and asked consultees to discuss the various merits of these which they would most like to see demonstrated here. The suggestion of continuing agricultural production alongside increased tree cover was well received.

Objectives

1. Work in partnership to deliver sustainable opportunities to grow food, trees, nature.
2. Increase tree cover to demonstrate how government planting initiatives to help tackle the climate and nature emergencies can be achieved alongside other land uses.
3. Improve water quality, soil health and the habitat and species diversity

How we will achieve this:

• The plan for this area is to establish wide hedgerows (10m width) along with some more substantial planting in the field edge adjacent to the existing woodlandExisting hedge rows will be widened and new hedgerows will be established along  historic field boundaries that have been lost.  We will also establish groups of in-field trees and fence existing groups of trees to allow for natural regeneration, which will generate succession for these significant parkland features.
• The planting will bring the woodland cover of the growing space to around 20%
• The open areas will initially be managed with a set of prescriptions to achieve the objectives. Once the initial establishment is completed, we will seek to establish a partnership for the longer-term management of the lands. This will include further co-design of the area with the potential for further planting or other uses for the improved grassland that were raised during the consultation.

The  following maps set out the opportunities as described above.

Summary of feedback

We received 18 responses to the survey which provided an opportunity to input ‘free text’ comments about the plans. These were online (via citizen space), via email and letter, and in person during a ‘drop-in’ session held on the 14th of July at Llansadwrn Reading Room.

Similar to our initial consultation, habitat diversity was voted as the most important benefit that could be delivered by the various options for tree cover. This was followed by climate change mitigation, interestingly timber/wood products and livestock were voted least important.

Wood pasture and ‘mega hedges’ were the most popular options with ‘community growing/allotments’ receiving the least number of votes.

We intend to create opportunities for volunteers to help us prepare and plant trees on the site. We will keep you updated about the dates and timings of these in due course.

Or you can request to be added to our mailing list by emailing: woodlandcreation.hub@cyfoethnaturiolcymru.gov.uk