Norfolk FWAG has positively worked with Norfolk County Council (NCC) on a support scheme for woodland planting schemes across Norfolk. NCC were successful in obtaining funding from DEFRA’s Woodland Creator Accelerator Funding (WCAF) to support tree planting across Norfolk. NFWAG entered into a consultancy agreement with NCC to provide advice and guidance services for tree planting grant schemes.
One of the barriers to accessing woodland planting grant schemes, such as the England Woodland Creation Offer (EWCO), is the considerable amount of paperwork and pre-application work that is required to pull an application together. This significant barrier can prevent applications from being submitted and stop vital woodland from being planted. With the backing of the NCC funding, NFWAG were able to provide essential support for farmers and land managers to apply to the woodland planting grant schemes. This allowed NFWAG to provide a complementary service to land managers, which included mapping, planting plans, species mixes, negotiation with Forestry Commission/Woodland Trust, background surveys, and all application paperwork.
The funding covered three planting seasons (2023/2024, 2024/2025 and 2025/2026), and whilst the scheme was slow to start, the scheme was successful in supporting 30 land managers in creating applications for either the EWCO scheme or the smaller MoreWoods scheme provided by the Woodland Trust. We had a 100% success rate for all applications submitted. The total land area of these schemes was approximately 56 hectares and encompassed the planting of around 81,000 trees across Norfolk.
Most of these planting schemes included the fresh planting of new trees or shrubs of native mixes, including species such as Oak, Hornbeam, Field Maple, Hawthorn, Hazel, Silver Birch, Holly, Spindle, Wayfaring tree, Whitebeam, and Scots Pine. Some of the schemes encouraged natural regeneration, where plants are monitored and selected from natural regenerated saplings. All planting schemes were also assessed for their ability to be resilient to changes in the climate over the next couple of decades, and as such the species mixes were adjusted appropriately.
Although the NCC funding is no longer available, the project allowed the team to further improve their knowledge and understanding of woodland applications, and therefore remains in a good position to continue advising and supporting on successful future schemes.
