England's community forests are afforestation-based regeneration projects which were established in the early 1990s. Each of them is a partnership between the Forestry Commission and the Countryside Agency, which are agencies of the British government, and the relevant local councils.
Most of the designated areas are close to large cities and contain large amounts of brownfield, underused and derelict land. When the forests were created the average forest cover in the designated areas was 6.9%, and the target is to increase this to 30% over about 30 years. As most of the land is in private ownership the schemes rely mainly on providing landowners with incentives to plant trees. However the forests contain areas of publicly accessible open land, and increasing public access is one of the objectives.
The table below lists the community forests. As some of them straddle county boundaries they are listed by region and town or city.
Forest Region City Area Website Forest of Avon Bristol and Avon Bristol Great Western Community Forest Swindon and surrounding area Swindon Greenwood Community Forest West Nottinghamshire Nottingham Forest of Marston Vale Bedford to Milton Keynes Bedford Forest of Mercia Staffordshire and West Midlands Birmingham Mersey Forest Merseyside and north Cheshire Liverpool City of Trees Greater Manchester Manchester Humber Forest East Riding of Yorkshire, Kingston upon Hull and North Lincolnshire Hull Thames Chase Bruntwood, Barking and Dagenham, Havering, Thurrock and Essex London White Rose Forest Leeds City, North and West Yorkshire Leeds
See also
References
External links Community Forest Trust Forest of Avon Trust