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In September, we took a lease from Oxfordshire County Council on the 10-acre monoculture Willow Coppice in the Neyotts behind Siemens, in order to turn it into a species-rich Wet Woodland over time.

Wet woodland is one of the UK’s rarest habitats and provides for a range of floodplain animals. Our initial surveys found that the the Willow Coppice already hosts otter and water vole. Woodland is critical to flood mitigation and can play an important role in natural flood management.

_{Network members exploring the coppice in 2025} 

_{Starting work to clear some of the willow monoculture}

The plan is to restore the woodland slowly over time, so that instead of creating a new plantation, we create something more akin to a natural woodland with trees of differing ages including enabling some areas to regenerate naturally. We also plan to grow Ash and Elm, in order to get standing deadwood, which is an important habitat, earlier than will be normal in a new woodland. Some areas of willow coppice will be kept to provide binders for hedge-laying and material for riverbank restoration and fencing.

_{Removing 20 year old tree guards that were frittering their plastic into the landscape…}

_{Putting up bird boxes with partners Farmability}

In February 2026, we made a start by trying to determine the least invasive, most eco-friendly, way of removing some of the serried ranks of White willow. The decision to plant a willow coppice in a floodplain meadow was itself an error since vehicles cannot get onto the site in winter, which is the time for coppicing.

Despite scepticism from some quarters, we experimented with using recycled compost bags and putting them over the coppiced stumps and tying them with string. Within 4 months the trees had died!

_{Trialling the re-use of compost bags to kill off the willow stumps}

_{Four months later - success!}  

The acquisition of a woodchipper, funded by WODC, will support our clearance efforts and the composted-woodchip feeds into our zero-miles compost for plant propagation.

Be a part of the story

As part of our measured, long-term approach we will not be planting up the wet woodland en masse with plants from outside. Instead we invite the whole community to help us as we build the wet woodland from locally collected seeds and cuttings.

We're collaborating with International Tree Foundation to start a tree section of our restoration nursery. Bring along your own collected tree seeds and cuttings to one of our next community restoration days or our regular Wednesday group.

Seeds to collect: 

• Ash
• Oak
• Elm
• Hazel
• Crabapple
• Hawthorne
• Blackthorne
• Maple

Remember to:

• Log the location you collected the seeds - noting it down on the packet or by taking a GPS enabled picture
• Keep the seeds cool until bringing them - ideally in a plastic bag in the fridge