Essential felling and removal of ash with large machinery and associated work is due to take place in Sims Hill Wood, starting from week of 27th January 2025 for 8 to 16 weeks. During this time, some of the paths will be closed. Please be aware it is dangerous to climb on or otherwise disturb log stacks.
Several parts of the Sims Hill woodland are predominantly ash. Most of the ash is infected with ash dieback disease, which means that they will quickly become brittle, drop branches and eventually die and fall over. We need to manage those trees to minimise the risk to anyone using the woodland. You will have noticed previous felling to remove the most infected ash, leaving any showing signs of tolerance to the disease at the time.
The final major phase of ash dieback felling will now take place in the south-east of the wood. Please refer to the map below. Due to the disease progression there are no ash in this area showing signs of tolerance to be retained. The branches will be raked into dead hedges and the area replanted with a diverse mixture of tree and shrub species.
The felling is approved by the landowner South Gloucestershire Council and is in accordance with FC Operations Notes 46 and 46b and approved felling licence FL-018-1441-2022.
We are not able to sell logs to individuals, they are sold as one lot by the felling company in order to partly cover the costs of the felling work.
Further felling and planting will still be necessary in future years but this will be on a much smaller scale. This will include any retained ash which become unsafe due to disease progression. Selective felling and/or coppicing in the oak and sweet chestnut blocks will also take place in small sections at a time as part of standard woodland management. This will improve the age structure, species diversity and resilience of the whole wood.
Further information on ash dieback, the necessary felling work and the volunteer group is available in a presentation and Q&A found in the 6th Nov 2023 post.