Great Western Community Forest
The Great Western Community Forest brings local people and organisations together to create a better environment. It was founded in 1994 alongside 11 other community forests across England.
A community forest is not in one single place. It covers a mix of community woodland, private woodland, street trees, urban woodland, wooded habitat corridors and hedgerows across the borough.
Download the plan
Read and download the latest plan:
What the project aims to do
The project aims to grow trees where they are most needed. This will create woodland corridors across the borough and help connect communities to nature.
Being closer to trees and woodland can help people enjoy outdoor spaces, support biodiversity and improve resilience to climate change. Trees and other nature-based solutions can also help reduce flooding and drought through carbon capture and natural flood management.
With Swindon at its heart, the Great Western Community Forest covers 39,000 hectares, which is over 168 square miles. It stretches from the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty to the River Thames.
The forest aims to create a network of woodlands and other semi-natural habitats in response to local development pressures. In Swindon, the target is 30% tree cover across the Great Western Community Forest area, which includes the whole borough. Swindon’s average baseline tree cover was 3%.
Between 2020 and 2023, we planted 35 hectares of woodland, which is more than 40,000 trees, across the Great Western Community Forest. This increased carbon sequestration capacity by around 431 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. More than 30% of the trees were planted in areas that support natural flood management.
More than 10,000 trees are being planted at Mouldon Hill, Coate and Stanton country parks, and at Shaw Forest Park. This planting is taking place in two phases during the 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025 planting seasons.
Places you can visit
There are many woodland locations in the Great Western Community Forest that you can explore. Some of the most accessible public sites are:
- Nightingale Wood. A 50.2-hectare, or 128-acre, community woodland planted in the 1990s on a former agricultural site. It supports a wide range of wildlife, especially birds. You can enjoy a picnic, use one of three easy-access trails, or explore the trim trail play equipment funded by the project.
- Stanton Park. A 74-hectare, or 183-acre, estate with ancient broadleaved woodland, grassland and a fishing lake. It is also a local nature reserve with many habitats for wildlife, 900 species of fungi and wildflower meadows.
- Stratton Wood. A 53.7-hectare, or 132.69-acre, woodland just outside Swindon. It is the largest of the 18 sites that make up the Great Western Community Forest. This young woodland includes wildflower meadows, seasonal ponds and areas of mature trees.
- Shaw Forest Park. A 40-hectare, or 98.8-acre, community woodland about 3km north-west of central Swindon. It includes habitats such as ash and willow woodland, scrubland, juniper and alder.
- Purton Wood. A 16-hectare, or 39.5-acre, wood on the north-west edge of Swindon next to Mouldon Hill Country Park.
- Warneage Wood. A mix of woodland, grassland and ponds on former fields in Wanborough. It was planted in the mid-1990s and has extensive paths.
- Oxleaze Farm. A 2.81-hectare, or 6.94-acre, broadleaved woodland planted in 2004 near the village of South Marston, north of Swindon.
- Swindon Forest Meadows. A partnership project between Swindon Borough Council and Wiltshire Wildlife Trust. It creates, restores, enhances and manages grassland sites covering about 170 hectares across 12 sites in Swindon.
Help plant trees
The main tree planting season runs from October to March each year.
We work with parish councils to promote volunteer tree planting opportunities. In recent years, volunteers have helped plant around 51,500 new trees across Swindon, including 18 sites in the Great Western Community Forest area.
If you want to hear about future volunteer planting opportunities, email CommunityForest@swindon.gov.uk.
Support for private landowners
We are involved in Trees for Climate, a national multi-million pound woodland creation programme with one of the most competitive grant schemes currently available for tree planting.
We have secured funding for tree planting and woodland creation across the whole Great Western Community Forest area and beyond.
You can also read about opportunities for private landowners.