West Stormont Woodland Group

West Stormont
Woodland Group

Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO) SC051682

Join us today to bring Taymount Wood and Five Mile Wood into community ownership

Monthly Community Update for December 2020

West Stormont was the name used in medieval times to cover the parishes of Auchtergaven, Kinclaven, Logiealmond, Moneydie, Redgorton (Stanley) and the Murthly portion of Little Dunkeld. West Stormont has been chosen as the most suitably inclusive title for the many communities connected to Taymount and Five Mile Woods today. Working with local people to bring Taymount Wood and Five Mile Wood into Community Ownership
West Stormont Woodland Group

What has WSWG been doing this month?

  • How does Margaret Lear keep producing these incredibly evocative blogs for us? November’s peacefulsaunter with her through Taymount Wood as autumn moves into winter was aptly named Last LeavesFalling” and felt just like “Stress Levels Falling” as you read it!
  • Woodland walks with Perth and Kinross Countryside Trust, discussing the many ways we couldwork together once our community owns the woods. The River Tay Way looks like coming our way too!
  • Forestry consultant, Donald McPhillimy, was appointed to produce the WSWG Feasibility Studyfor our community owning and managing Taymount and Five Mile Woods.
  • Valuations jointly commissioned by WSWG and Forestry and Land Scotland are in from Galbraith: Taymount Wood: £1.4 million; Five Mile Wood £1.0 million. Equating to just £450 invested for each person in our WSWG area (population 5,670), the CATS scheme should enable us to discount these figures based on the far-reaching community benefits being included in the WSWG proposal. Let’s do this!
  • Working to bring together a shadow board to help WSWG move towards legal status to own the woods.
  • Organising the production of a new, professionally-designed WSWG website which will also beour main platform for presenting our proposed woodland plans for community consultation in early 2021.
  • We’ve also been investigating how WSWG might fit into the big new local initiative for Perth to becomethe Most Sustainable Small City in Europe in future. Starting now!
  • And those lovely painted slates in Five Mile Wood?? Nice one, Active Kids! Thank you.

WSWG Word of the Month – Mast year

Trees and shrubs each have their own ways of reproducing, such as acorns, hazelnuts, conkers, seedpods, winged seeds, cones and berries. A collective word for this seed or nut crop is “mast”, from the Scandinavian word “mat”, meaning food. Every few years, particular species will produce a bumper crop and when this happens, we call it a mast year. 2020 is looking like a mast year for acorns, the seed of oak trees.

What’s coming up next?

• WSWG would like to take advantage of the 2020 MAST YEAR FOR OAKS and help nature along by gathering acorns from where they are plentiful and planting them in Taymount and Five Mile Woods where they are not present in good numbers but would be a valuable addition to the woods. WSWG is starting to make plans for this to be a covid-safe community activity and hopes to organise something for the Christmas holidays. Watch this space and please let us know if you would like to join in so we can get in touch!

• CHRISTMAS ….. have a merry one and let’s hope 2021 is a great year for us all and our woods.

  • Become a WSWG Member today
  • Join the FREE MEMBERSHIP SCHEME on our website www.weststormontwoodlandgroup.scot
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  • Email us: contact@weststormontwoodlandgroup.scot

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Previous Articles

Community Monthly Update – October 2024

Let’s start with a big thank you to PKC for the great job they have done resurfacing the U38 road from Five Mile Wood car park to Stanley past Active Kids. All done within the scheduled closure period and neatly tied in with a recessed tarmac apron at the car park. So much safer and more comfortable for everybody now the potholes and rough edges are no more.

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Community Monthly Update – September 2024

Latest on Stanley Wildwood (Rookery Wood). You may remember that we dedicated our July Monthly Update to making the case for community ownership of Stanley Wildwood, with subsequent mailouts and Facebook posts to encourage our members and supporters to vote in PKC’s recent public consultation for a community-based future for this small but important woodland in Stanley village. We are therefore delighted to tell you that the Council has reported that 65.6% of respondents in the Stanley postcode area were in favour of a community outcome for the woodland. Thank you so much to everyone who participated in the consultation. WSWG and Tayside Woodland Partnerships are now in discussion with PKC to explore further the option of bringing the woodland into community ownership and management. We will keep you posted including ways individuals and the wider community can get involved going forward.

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Something quite different has cropped up for WSWG and Stanley village recently, so we have decided to make it the sole topic of our update this month and a simple appeal to you at the same time. PKC who currently own the 0.56 acre Stanley Wildwood (the Rookery wood) have decided it is surplus to their needs. They have launched an on-line consultation to find out whether the local community thinks it should be sold to a private neighbouring resident as an extension to their garden ground or sold or leased to a willing community organisation. The area owned by PKC is shown in yellow. It has had a Tree Preservation Order (TPO) since 1987. We believe the best interests of the Wildwood and rookery will be served through community not private ownership. Please support our goal by voting for Option 2 in the PKC consultation, using the link shown.

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Community Monthly Update – June 2024

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Community Monthly Update – May 2024

We are really delighted this month to start with the announcement that the winner of the WSWG April Photography Competition in the Children’s category is Dougie from Highland Perthshire. His stunning and clever photograph was taken at the head of Loch Rannoch, looking west, on Saturday 20 April. Such a beautiful, calm scene in our precious Perthshire countryside, but just look at the perfect capture of the beautiful splash effect at its heart. A truly super photo.

Congratulations, Dougie. Thank you very much for taking part in this competition and your well-deserved prize will be making its way to you very soon.

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