LATEST NEWS

WOODLAND FUNDING PLEA

It’s been a busy (and slightly stressful) few weeks for the team putting together funding bids, meeting with funders, achieving charitable status and waiting to hear outcomes, all to secure the funds to purchase our beloved woodland!

We’re now at a critical stage – we need to be able to meet the costs of instructing solicitors to start the purchase conveyancing so that we can complete mid March to meet one of the requirements of our funders.    And this is where we really need your help – we need to be able to raise £6,000 before 10 February to be confident that we can meet the costs of the solicitor.  On the off chance the bid was not to be successful, if one of the funders chooses not to invest, none of the funders will release funds to allow us to meet the legal costs that will have been incurred.  We are confident that the funding bids we have been working on will meet funding criteria, but we must be able to cover the costs of entering into a contract with the solicitors.

If the bids are successful then we will obviously have sufficient funds and any monies raised via this request will be put into the development of the woodland.   In the event that we cannot bring together a full funding package to purchase the woodland, the charity we have set up would be dissolved and any monies left distributed to other local charities.

We know times are tight and this is a big ask, but we are at a point where we have no option but to ask for your help to keep moving forward – we are so close!   If you can help, you can donate to our crowdfunder by clicking here.

The Directors will be meeting again next week to review the situation and agree next steps at that point.  

Thanking you in advance for your help!

Ian Brooke, Chair
John Hart, Secretary
Alastair McClelland, Treasurer
Alastair Leaver
Cllr Viv Thomson
Broughtonknowe Community Woodland Ltd
Scottish Charity SC053888 and Company Limited by Guarantee SC824232

Please check out our posts below for more information and media coverage of the community buyout.

MEMBERSHIP:

A LETTER TO NEW MEMBERS OF ‘BROUGHTONKNOWE COMMUNITY WOODLAND Ltd.’ FROM THE CHAIRMAN: 15/12/24 Dear Member Thank you very much for submitting the form to

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Peebleshire News report

A front page news report of the proceedings of our Community Meeting was published on Fri 28/7/23 including an interview with Christopher Lambton, the present

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For more information, please email us at friendsofbroughtonknowe@gmail.com.

ABOUT

Broughtonknowe Wood

Broughtonknowe Wood is in the Scottish Borders about a mile north of Broughton on the A701. It extends to some 135 acres and was planted in the late 1980s with a mixture of native hardwoods and commercial softwoods. It was the vision of the late Major David Balfour-Scott who conceived the idea of a woodland with commercial potential softened by amenity and the beauty of native species. Once planted the wood immediately won awards for its forward thinking vision. Since 2001 Christopher Lambton and Julie Morrice have owned the wood and hope that walkers will continue to enjoy the woodland for generations to come.

Friends of Broughtonknowe Woodland

Friends of Broughtonknowe Woodland was set up in 2021 to bring together like minded people aiming to improve the woodland amenity and increase its biodiversity, with the encouragement of the owners.

Developments so far have included a nest box trail, a bird spotting trail and an explorer trail as well as a number of new paths. A new pond has been dug and another significantly enlarged. A number of board walks and mini bridges have been constructed over tricky terrain throughout the woodland and new benches have been built along the various routes.

FORESTRY

Allied to the biodiversity work of the ‘Friends’, the forest thinning operation has been ongoing since 2020.  Billy works during the week selectively felling spruce, larch and other conifers to create a semi-natural spacing between the remaining trees. 

The result is a stunning aesthetic achievement best appreciated by walking one of the middle paths where you can see how this work admits light, life and colour into a previously sterile woodland.

The idea is that these trees are never clear-felled and the forest exists in perpetuity while being subtly restructured from within.

The harvested timber is extracted each month and sold to local biomass markets, with the bigger logs going to the sawmill in Lockerbie.

LOCATION

The car park for the woodland is just off the A701 just over half a mile south from the junction with the A72 to Muirburn and Skirling, a mile north of Broughton.

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