Land Acquisition, Woodland Management & Enhancement and Projects for Community Amenities
Consultation with local residents
Ore Community Land Trust and the community organisations that preceded and created it, have been engaging local residents and organisations since the early 2000s to seek community views and ideas. There have been numerous public meetings, events and publicity to establish the level of local and indeed Borough wide, support for retaining Speckled Wood as woodland and green space. In addition, the removal of large amounts of rubbish, the clearance of footpaths and the stream, the construction of bridges and many steps to improve accessibility, woodland management of the unregistered land and other work has opened up Speckled Wood to the extent that is well used by the local community for walking to work, education and shops and for leisure.
Land Acquisitions
Ore Community Land Trust has acquired two significant parcels of land on Church Street, as well as Ore Village Green (the open space beside the Salvation Army Hall) and land behind the village green, extending down the steps to the community garden and volunteer centre. Eventually, OCLT would aim to acquire all the land in the woodland, although our current focus is on acquiring the unregistered land that extends from Frederick Road along to the valley floor to the perimeter wall of the old workhouse grounds. We have also had discussions with the owner of the site that borders Victoria Avenue, with a view to acquiring most of that.
Community Plan
During the campaign to save Speckled Wood many ideas for utilising the valley for community amenities, in addition to preserving and improving the woodland and maintaining animal habitat, have been developed and presented to residents to seek their views. Ore Valley Action launched a Community Plan exercise to present a range of possible improvements and new amenities such as seating, view points, child and adventure play areas, reinstatement of the abandoned allotments and the construction of a section for the proposed Hastings Greenway. This was well received and generated new ideas such as the concept of creating a Village Green for Ore.
It was recognised that the opportunity to realise these community assets would depend, to a large degree, on securing the core aim of the campaign, which is and has always been to have as much of the woodland valley redesignated as protected urban green space. This would allow Ore Community Land Trust to seek funding to acquire land in Speckled Wood, which was why it was launched by the previous campaign groups.
Projects
Ore Community Land Trust has developed a number of its ideas for community amenities in Speckled Wood, in collaboration with other organisations, and has sought support and funding to obtain more detailed design for some of the projects. The primary projects are:
• Children’s and Adventure Play Areas
• Community Food Growing
• Enhancement of the Valley floor
• Woodland Management to tackle Japanese Knotweed, open up the dense sycamore canopy and improve bio diversity
• Disabled Access Paths
• The Ore Valley Greenway (including greenway routes in the Lower Ore valley as well as Speckled Wood)
Of these projects, two have obtained local funding in the form of grants from the North East Hastings Big Local fund, which is administered by a resident-led partnership utilising a £1M Government grant.
These are:
Ore Valley Greenway
The Ore Valley Greenway Project is more far-reaching project that has been created by Ore Community Land Trust working with the Hastings Greenway Group and is based on the walking & cycling routes set out in the new Hastings Local Plan and in the County Council’s – Walking & Cycling Strategy. It aims to secure the route network within the Lower and Upper Ore Valleys and one of the more important sections runs through Speckled Wood, within the Development Management Plan proposed urban green space protection area. A project group was established to involve the two largest housing associations (Amicus Horizon and Orbit), the Sussex Coast College, Hastings Academy and the Disability Forum (the paths are intended to be fully accessible to people, with disabilities).
The Big Local fund has agreed to cover the cost of the route design work, construction costings and necessary reports to apply for planning permission. This grant will also cover a program of wide community consultation that Ore Community Land Trust and its partners will run alongside the design work. The design work will be carried out by Sustrans, the national organisation that promotes and designs walking & cycling routes across the UK. A number of viable funding sources have been identified for the construction of the Greenway paths and so this project, which will bring much needed connectivity across the Ore Valleys and particular benefits for Speckled Wood and local residents, is very likely to be realised.
Land acquisition for the section of the Greenway in Speckled Wood would be reasonably straightforward as the first section from the Frederick Road end is in fact unregistered and could easily be the subject of a Compulsory Purchase Order by Hastings Borough Council. This idea has been discussed with the lead member for Regeneration. The route then runs through two areas of privately owned land before reaching Church Street – believed to be a ‘white’ road, which the highway authority could adopt.
Community Food Growing
The next project to develop is the Community Food Growing initiative, which is very much in line with the recognition of the community value of producing locally grown food and involving residents in the process. It would enhance social inclusion and provide a valuable educational opportunity for local schools and volunteer work for people of all ages.
There is only one area of level and accessible land in Speckled Wood suitable for this project, which unsurprisingly is the area of abandoned allotments behind Old London Road. Once again this land is within the DMP urban green space protection area. It is anticipated that a range of grant funding opportunities will be available for the land acquisition and development of the community food growing project and a partnership of local organisations and schools will be formed to manage the project.
Woodland Below the Community Garden and Community Food Growing Area
The land below Graystone Lane slopes away before dropping steeply to the valley floor. This area is recently grown broad leafed woodland and, although it would benefit from woodland management, some clearance and replanting with indigenous trees, it should be left as woodland to provide the very important buffer zone that provides the quiet and tranquil setting of the centre of Speckled Wood.
Future Projects
Future projects would include a systematic removal of the invasive Japanese Knotweed (successfully carried out on OCLT owned land along Church Street), enhancement of the Valley floor by selective clearance to open out a clearing with some indigenous tree replanting, seating, the creation of a pond to improve biodiversity and a disabled accessible path running beside the stream and linking to the Greenway. Further improvements to footpaths and the flight of steps and the creation of a number of view points would be included in later stages of the work in Speckled Wood.