It’s quite a satisfactory feeling to plant your 50,000th tree. Well, it’s thanks to Tim, Emma, Chris and their team, including Autumn and Fudge the spaniels, that we now have 50,000 trees planted across three sites all within close distance of our head office here in Cam.

It was a decision which we took as a business back in 2010, as part of our ethos to become a carbon negative company. An environmental goal which we have now achieved.

The first site was planted in 2012 and included 10,000 trees on a 12-acre site within a mile of our factory. This area is now a haven for wildlife with regular sightings of grass snakes, slow worms and even the relatively rare woodcock. In 2020, we moved onto a separate 14-acre site within Coaley – a patchwork of new woodland, water, and open grassland. Here we planted a further 12,500 trees, as well as putting out feeders to attract pheasant, partridge, and mandarin ducks. The final site is a 27-acre plot just a few miles down the road from the Mill which we completed most recently – alongside digging a new wildlife pond.

Here under the watchful gaze of Autumn the puppy, Tim and Emma planted a mixture of oak, alder, silver birch and cherry saplings by hand. Stamping them into the ground in a way to ensure their success, rather than using machinery. Planting the trees in the late winter whilst they are dormant gave them the best start in life.

We chose to plant the saplings in rows of three – allowing a combination which will work for future coppicing without leaving the woodland looking bare. So, three rows of permanent slow growing oak, are interspersed with the faster growing alder and birch for coppicing every three to five years into firewood.  Allowing for us to make more space for the oaks in the future as well once they dominate more.

Around the edge of this most recent site, we have built wire fencing to stop deer entering the woodland and eating the saplings. But in five years’ time, this fence will be taken down to ensure a highway for wildlife across the field and to allow the deer to interact with the woodland in a natural way.

According to Rewilding Britain, just 13 percent of Britain is woodland, compared to a European average of 37 percent. Our rewilding plans are a long-term venture for us which we will continue to manage and monitor. With the hope that our woodlands will become home to owls, hedgehogs, badgers, bats and foxes.