New woodland created at Delph Reservoir

A brand-new woodland has been planted near Delph Reservoir with more than 4,000 trees being planted in just four days.

A mixture of native trees and shrubs have been planted on the four-hectare site close to the Bolton reservoir. Funded through the Forestry Commission’s England Woodland Creation Offer, the new woodland has been created as part of United Utilities’ pledge to plant one million trees by 2030.

The water company has already planted more than 216,000 trees and plans to add more than 52,000 more during the current tree planting season.

The project has been overseen by United Utilities’ Woodland Project Officer Iain Latham who said: “This piece of land was sitting empty, and we’ve had it earmarked for woodland for some time. Our initial plan was simply to plant a range of native woodland trees, but then we realised that there is a local population of barn owls.

“Because they use the area for hunting, we redesigned our planting scheme to include some open spaces with lower shrubs as this creates spaces for them to hunt.”

The site is located off the A666 Blackburn Road and trees planted include Oak, Downy Birch, Willow and Alder as well as Hawthorn, Rowan and Juniper.

Iain added: “It is incredible to see more than 4000 young trees planted in just four days and I’m looking forward to seeing these young trees maturing and attracting even more wildlife to the area.”