Hole Farm is a 100 hectare site where we’ll be creating a new community woodland.
Follow the story of our new woodland here.
Creating a new community woodland
In partnership with National Highways, we will be planning, planting and managing a new community woodland.
Our vision for Hole Farm is to create a multi-purpose woodland which will become an inspiring place for people to visit and explore, a thriving wildlife habitat and a source of sustainable timber.
This ties in with Forestry England and National Highways shared vision to “deliver a legacy of inspirational multi-purpose forest creation projects that will enhance and integrate the Lower Thames Crossing landscape for the environment and wellbeing."
We had a great first community planting day at Hole Farm on Sunday 4 December 2022. Find out more.
Working together with the local community
We sent questionnaires to 7,000 households in the surrounding area to gauge people’s opinions of the project and to hear what they would like to see, do and experience at Hole Farm community woodland.
We held four follow-up virtual workshops with the local community to discuss in more details the four main themes of the project: community and recreation, design and delivery, nature and biodiversity and access, traffic and public rights of way. People shared a wide range of views and we were able to explore these further onsite at Hole Farm during our Spring drop-in days, which included guided tours of the proposed community woodland.
Final consultation
We used the information gathered from engagement with the community to develop Hole Farm's woodland design and held our final consultation drop-in days in Great Warley on 2 and 3 September.
Our thanks to those who provided feedback on the latest plans for Hole Farm Community Woodland. All comments will be reviewed as we finalise woodland designs in the coming months.
A great community tree planting day
Thank you to everyone who joined us for our first community tree planting day at Hole Farm.
Sunday 4 December 2022 saw the local community plant around 1,000 trees which marks the first steps of transforming this 95-hectare site into a new community woodland.
A total of 14,000 trees have been planted this winter and with many more to be planted across the whole site over the coming years, there will be plenty more planting days for everyone to get involved with.
For further information and contact details please visit the National Highways website.
