Frodsham Woods, Cheshire: a new lease of life Woodland Walks - The Woodland Trust Podcast

Join us for a jam-packed visit to Frodsham Woods, Cheshire, where 80 volunteers were planting thousands of trees to help transform a former golf course into a fantastic new space for wildlife and people. We visit the neighbouring ancient woodland and admire hilltop views with site manager Neil and chat to Tim, supervisor of this army of tree planters, about how the new wood will develop. We also meet Esther, lead designer of the project, hear from comms guru Paul about the Trust's #plantmoretrees climate campaign, and speak to the volunteers about what the day means to them.
Transcript
You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people to enjoy, to fight climate change and to help wildlife thrive.
Adam: Well, today's podcast is a bit of an unusual one because I'm off to an abandoned golf course in Cheshire, overlooking Liverpool. Not far away, in fact. And the vision is to create this once golf course into a thriving mosaic of habitats, including lush broadleaved woodland, grassland meadows and wooded glades dotted with wildflowers. Throughout the site, they're creating a network of grassy paths so people can walk through them and get far-reaching views of the Welsh borders, the western Pennines and the Bowland Fells, along with, of course, Liverpool and the Mersey Estuary. And very excitingly, the man actually who's running all the tree planting there is also in a band, and it's his music and his band's music you can hear in the background. More about that a little later. It's called Frodsham Woods, and it's near the Frodsham train station. Guess where? In Frodsham. Well, today we are starting, I'm starting sitting down with Neil Oxley, who's the site manager here. Hi Neil.
Neil: Good morning, Adam.
Adam: Good morning. So, just explain where we are because we are, well, I'm not gonna take away your thunder. Explain. It's an unusual location.
Neil: So, we’re sat on a bench overlooking the River Mersey and Liverpool. We're on the old golf course that was closed about three years ago.
Adam: Yeah, well that's what I think is unusual – sitting on a golf course. I gotta take, it doesn't look like a golf course. They, the greenkeeper would have had a heart attack seeing the state of this place. But what's amazing is, well, I'm looking over a forest of planted trees. I mean, just within 10 yards, probably a couple of hundred of them, just been planted. So, this has got to be unusual. Take buying a golf course, turning it into a forest?
Neil: It is, yeah. I think it's probably the first golf course that the Woodland Trust has taken on and it's just a great opportunity, though, that when it became available, it's adjoining some of our existing woodlands, including ancient woodland. And it's given us an opportunity to plant lots of trees and work with local people and engage the community in doing something good for the climate.
Adam: And we're sitting down, looking over what might be, I don't know. Is that a bunker? Do you think that’s a bunker?
Neil: It is, yep. So, there there's probably about 40 bunkers on the golf course and we've kept them all, so some of those old features are still here.
Adam: And I saw one, some gorse growing, just naturally growing in the bunker there.
Neil: There is. Just in the two or three years since it stopped being maintained. There's gorse, there's silver birch, there's all sorts of trees and plants that are now appearing.
Adam: I love the gorse. It's bright. It comes out early. Bright yellow. Real splash of colour in early spring. It's really.
Neil: It is, yeah, it's lovely and colourful.
Adam: And we're looking over a range of wind turbines. And is that the Mersey ahead?
Neil: That is, that's the River Mersey.
Adam: Although there’s not much river, it looks, it looks like it’s out. It's mainly mud.
Neil: It’s probably low tide at the moment. Yeah, and Liverpool just beyond the other side.