Community Monthly Update – October 2025

Mike Abbott, a founding member of WSWG.

It is with great sadness that we wish to let you know of the passing in August of our dear friend, Mike Abbott. It was Mike who started the whole WSWG ball rolling when, whilst walking his dog in Taymount Wood in 2018, he came upon a small notice announcing that the woods were for sale and that communities with an interest in buying, leasing or a management agreement should submit an Expression of Interest. With just two weeks left before the deadline, Mike and wife Betty got the local grapevine going and, the rest, as they say, is history. Mike was a key member of the WSWG Steering Group for several years until ill health meant he had to step back, and we are so grateful for everything he put into the development of the WSWG project at that critical stage. We send our love and thanks to Betty and family and will remember Mike very fondly.

Mike Abbott (on left), Taymount Wood, 2018

What has WSWG been doing these past few months?

Once again, we’ve had a bit of a gap since our last update in July! We hope everyone has had a lovely summer and autumn and will enjoy this update on WSWG activities.

Jan Hendry wrote a lovely summer blog for us as part of her moth-focused “Fragile” Art and Ecology Project which was mailed out to members and supporters in August. We hope you enjoyed it and if you’d like to read it again, you can click through here.

And on 9 August, Jan led a wonderful “Magic Moths” Art and Ecology Workshop for us in Stanley Village Hall with moths light-trapped the night before in a nearby garden in Stanley (and released back into their home environment after the workshop). What a lovely, gentle, utterly absorbing, multi-generational afternoon it was. Thank you to Jan for the amazing and fascinating insight she has given us into the range of moth species we have in different habitats at different times of the year in Taymount Wood and Stanley village. The Stanley Biodiversity Village project has a moth trap which will be available for people to borrow next year. Please get in touch if you would like to participate in finding out even more about the moths which share our natural environment with us.

Jan’s Magic Moths Art and Ecology Workshop in Stanley Village Hall, August 2025

Everyone absorbed in making mothy flexagons

Two new walks that connect the woods

Other in-house events have included small bands of intrepid WSWG adventurers testing out WSWG member Mike Thewlis’s 6km “Green Route” Walk in the Taymount area on 20 July and his 10km “Red Route” from Taymount Wood car park to Five Mile Wood car park via Airntully on 3 August. Both excellent walks through diverse environments, enjoying lovely weather and good company. Please get in touch to tell us if you’d be keen to join a similar walk another time. Or check out these walks in your own time.

And more Bushcraft with Biscuit

We also had another wonderful warm and sunny day of bushcraft in Taymount Wood on 11 August with Biscuit of Wee Adventures. The morning session was for children, tying knots, making shelters and creating leave-no-trace obstacle courses. In the afternoon, our friends from Vision PK enjoyed our first bushcraft session for grown-ups!

Ditch-crossing with Biscuit in the morning

Shelter-building session with friends from Vision PK in the afternoon

Nature Recovery and Climate Action

WSWG has been branching out too! Nature Recovery and Climate Action are all about communities thinking creatively and taking action together. WSWG engages routinely with a wide range of regional initiatives in this regard and is working locally to deliver community action outwith as well as within the woods. Under our theme of Outreach and Connectivity, we are currently involved in:

the Stanley Wildwood Rookery Project as a flagship project under the Stanley Biodiversity Village initiative, with a new Stanley-based group working on the vision, plans, timescales and costings for that at present;
working more closely with Stanley Development Trust including a community project seeking funding from the PKC Green Living Fund this autumn – The Common Ground Garden project (see below);
a process to create a short nature-themed community video commissioned by Climate Connect P&K.

The Common Ground Project

The Common Ground Garden project will turn a neglected space into a thriving Community Garden where families grow food, share skills and build resilience. Community Voting on the PKC Green Living Fund applications is expected to run from 27 October to 14 November (tbc). When voting opens, community members will be able to vote using an online platform that will be available via the Perth and Kinross Climate Action website (www.pkclimateaction.co.uk). We’d love our WSWG members and supporters to vote for the Stanley Development Trust “Common Ground Garden” Project to increase the chance of receiving an award and ensuring this exciting collaborative community project can go ahead very soon.

Climate Cafe – West Stormont

WSWG has been running Pop-up Climate Café sessions at various events over the past year and this summer we have formalised our relationship with the Climate Café Network by officially registering Climate Café-West Stormont. We will continue to run Pop-up Climate Café sessions at various WSWG events, but we are open to suggestions as to other ways Climate Café-West Stormont could operate throughout our area – outwith the woods as well as within the woods.

Newly Repaired and Upgraded Notice Boards

Mike Thewlis has also been busy helping WSWG repair, renew and re-install the noticeboards at the various entrances to Taymount Wood and Five Mile Wood, which years of exposure to the elements and a bit of vandalism in 2025 had left in a very sad state. All back in use soon. A big thank you to Mike for this and all of his diverse volunteering with us this year.

Mike’s restored and strengthened noticeboard at Taymount Wood car park

Repairing our Damaged Verges

Sadly, after spring and summer beauty, abundance and diversity for people and pollinators, our wildflower corridors along the track verges in Taymount and Five Mile Woods were unexpectedly and completely mown in July – collateral damage from full scale summer rather than selective winter scrub clearance, it would appear. This was the second negative impact event for this valuable wildflower habitat in 3 years. Each time something like this happens to a vulnerable habitat, it weakens its resilience, slowing recovery and reducing its ecological contribution to the local ecosystem. We have lost so many wildflowers in our natural environment over the last century, these remaining fragments are so precious. We are absolutely determined to make sure it will not happen again in Taymount Wood and Five Mile Wood and will keep you posted over the coming months on how we hope to set about this mission.

Final Thoughts

A WSWG representative attended part of the excellent Community Woodlands Association Annual Conference in Stirling in September, and we are already following up on some of the information and experience we gained from both delegates and contributors. WSWG has been a member of the Community Woodlands Association since 2018 and we would recommend our members and supporters to follow them and benefit from some of their activities too. They produce a monthly Bulletin and a quarterly Newsletter which are well worth reading to find out what is going on in the community woodland scene all across Scotland. Here is the link for their October 2025 Bulletin: October 2025 Bulletin

There is no further news as yet on the planning application for an intensive breeding poultry unit at Newbigging Farm, situated on the southern edge of Taymount Wood and to which WSWG submitted an Objection in July. This was accompanied by a list of 63 WSWG members and supporters local to the proposed development who wished their names to be added to WSWG’s Objection. We believe WSWG’s Objection was one of 56 overall alongside 5 in Support of the planning application. We will keep you posted when we hear anything further.

We are delighted that our recent funding report to Highland Community Energy Society (HCES), WSWG’s most significant funding source to date by far, features as a Case Study on their website. Our huge thanks go to HCES for their many years of this versatile, core support for the WSWG project.

And a final footnote from Mike Abbott. WSWG was very touched indeed to be chosen by Betty and family to receive a share of the funds raised at Mike’s memorial service at Kinclaven Parish Church in September. We hope Mike would approve of the use to which we decide to put this very special donation. Thank you so much.

Word of the Month

Storm Amy: the name of the recent storm which caused localised windblow in Taymount Wood along the first 100m of the main forest track, blocking all access from the car park. Hopefully it will be cleared soon!

Windblown trees blocking the main track in Taymount Wood – Storm Amy damage, 3rd – 4th October 2025

What’s coming up next?

31 October 2025 – time in Taymount Wood (precise location in woods dependant on whether windblown trees will be removed in time) to progress the Climate Connect Perth and Kinross-sponsored, connectivity-themed, nature video project with film-maker Fergus Reid. The Friday Stanley Health Walk Group are coming along; a seasonal conservation activity to take part in; recording people’s thoughts on nature and biodiversity, past, present and future; and whatever else evolves on the day.

Other than that, apart from some small scale tree planting (dates tbc), it’s a fairly quiet autumn for WSWG on the community event front at the moment, but any event notices will be sent out to members and others on our mailing list and full details of the WSWG events programme and any booking arrangements can be found on the website.

Community Monthly Update – July 2025

July 24, 2025

WSWG member Mike Thewlis has been investigating the local access network and has come up with a circular walking route he has named the “Stanley 3 Woods Nature Walk”, taking in Taymount, Five Mile and Stanley Rookery Woods along the way. He is encouraging us to use our core path network and other walking routes to get out and discover (or rediscover) what’s there on our doorstep. Read what he has to say about local access and other connections helping us enjoy and improve our natural environment.

‘FRAGILE’ – the development of an art and ecology project, by Jan Hendry’

July 21, 2025

I’ve been wanting to do an art & ecology project for years. If the purpose of art is to show what you care about, then I see it as my job as an artist to make work inspired by the ‘living planet’ (apologies to David Attenborough!).

Why moths? I decided to focus on moths after going to two moth-themed events in 2023: one at Scotia Seeds near Brechin, run by Buglife and a group of local experts; one at Campy Growers at Camperdown Park in Dundee, organised by wildlife tour leader Ian Ford. I was amazed at the beauty and variety of the moths and the knowledge and enthusiasm of the experts. The other people at the events were as impressed as me and we had a very sociable time passing round moths in pots, “ooh-ing” and “ah-ing” at their amazing patterns and colours.

Community Monthly Update – April 2025

April 10, 2025

On 1 April, WSWG participated in the Nature Networks Community Engagement event in Birnam, one of several such workshops run recently by PKC in conjunction with Perthshire Nature Connections Partnership. (Nature Networks? See our Word of the Month for more information.)

The concept of West Stormont Connect as a vision and conversation space for encouraging regenerative practices and connectedness for people and planet at local landscape scale in fact preceded the WSWG Community Woodlands Project. Whilst the WSWG Project has been evolving as part of the concept, other positive contributory factors have been developing alongside, including the Stanley Biodiversity Village initiative. The map evolved following a Mini Bioblitz programme for P&K Biodiversity Villages organised by Tayside Biodiversity Partnership in 2023 when WSWG asked for Taymount and Five Mile Woods to be included within the Stanley Biodiversity Village boundary.

Community Monthly Update – March 2025

March 12, 2025

Our ongoing priority this month has been working through the steps involved in submitting our revised funding application to the National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF), including another very useful Teams meeting on 28 February with Lauren Arthur, our NLHF Engagement Officer. We have been using our Vision Refresh Report from Nikki Souter Associates to inform the shape and scope of this new application where we are approaching NLHF as the main funder in bringing Taymount Wood into community ownership. As this involves material changes since our initial Expression of Interest was approved by NLHF in 2024 when we approached them as a prospective lesser funder, we will shortly be resubmitting our revised Expression of Interest to them. If accepted, we will proceed to submitting what we see as a very exciting Phase 1 funding application as soon as possible.

But meanwhile, can you guess what this is a photo of? See our Extra Word of the Month below for the answer.

Community Monthly Update – February 2025

February 12, 2025

This has been another month where behind-the-scenes admin has somewhat outpaced community stories or new milestones to lead on, so we will instead begin with a celebration of two natural highlights of the WSWG year so far. For most of us, the Aurora Borealis used to be a rare sight in Scotland, needing us to travel to the northern isles or northern Scandinavian for more reliable and impressive viewing. But recently, the Northern Lights have been much more active over the UK, both locally and even down to the south coast of England. Here are some shots taken of the skies above Taymount Wood around the turn of the year. Our second natural highlight is that Taymount and Five Mile Wood came through Storm Eowyn’s 90mph winds remarkably unscathed, both a joy and a relief to us all. Forestry and Land Scotland have carried out priority tree clearance to keep forestry tracks open. Thank you to those WSWG members who reported windblown trees across the core paths.

Community Monthly Update – January 2025

January 23, 2025

It’s been a deliberately quiet month for WSWG over the Christmas period so instead of a summary of what we’ve done in the past few weeks, our focus this January is on wishing all our members, supporters and wider community a Happy New Year, and then musing, with the help of a few uplifting photos taken this week, on how beautiful our woods are when draped in winter sunlight, frost and mist and what a stroll in nature can do for our spirit and wellbeing at this time of year. So, if you can, make sure you enjoy this treat for real with your own walk in the woods, whatever time of year it happens to be.