Trees for the Jubilee – celebrating Nottinghamshire's Diamond Wood

Planting of up to 40,000 trees at the Sutton Bonington site is expected to start in October this year, continuing until February 2013. The University hopes to involve the local community, schools, former students and other interested groups in the planting, development and enjoyment of the Diamond Wood, in this Jubilee year and in the future.

Visitors will be welcome

Like its counterparts across the country, Nottinghamshire’s Diamond Wood will be 60 acres in size. The University hopes to incorporate footpaths, activities and open spaces at the site for visitors to use and enjoy.

Professor Karen Cox, the University’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Environment and Infrastructure, said: “We are naturally delighted by the news that our submission has been accepted as one of the Diamond Wood locations. It will give us a tremendous opportunity for community engagement through the planting of the wood as well as on an ongoing basis as the woodland matures.

“Our aim is to design the woodland as an educational resource demonstrating biodiversity and sustainability in woodland practice which will provide education, enjoyment and interest to future generations.”

The Woodland Trust has worked with a diverse range of landowners from across the UK to create the Diamond Woods, from universities such as Nottingham, local authorities, public bodies including British Waterways and the Ministry of Defence, through to developers and private landowners.

Spanning the UK from Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides to Truro at the tip of Cornwall, these 60 woods have all been committed to transforming the UK's landscape and local environments as part of the Trust’s Jubilee Woods Project. Even The Queen herself is creating a Diamond Wood, at Balmoral.

A rich habitat

The new native woodlands created will provide a rich habitat for wildlife and living, breathing spaces for people to enjoy for generations to come.

The Diamond Wood at Sutton Bonington is the only one in Nottinghamshire. It will be located on two sites close together by the River Soar, linked by a footpath.

Martin Suthers, Deputy Leader at Nottinghamshire County Council, said: “Warm congratulations to The University of Nottingham for its successful bid to be able to plant one of 60 Diamond Woods.

“It is a wonderful opportunity for the county to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in a special and unique way and to lay down an environmental legacy for future generations to enjoy. The County Council is excited about the prospect of getting actively involved in community engagement at a very local level with this project with the University, the Woodland Trust and other organisations and communities as part of the wider project team.”

Focusing on sustainability

Sustainability is a key strand of the University’s fundraising appeal, ‘Impact: The Nottingham Campaign’, which is delivering the University’s vision to change lives, tackle global issues and shape the future. The University is ideally positioned – scientifically, geographically and politically – to make a significant contribution to sustainability. More information about Impact is available at: http://tiny.cc/UoNImpact  

The University embeds sustainability in everything it does, from the way new buildings are constructed to the way energy is generated and used on campus. As an institution it is committed to a 34 per cent absolute reduction in Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions by 2020, from its 2005/6 baseline.

The University’s Carbon Management Plan has seen more than £1.5m invested in 71 carbon reduction projects in its first year. Key developments include:
• Roof insulation put into 15 buildings, cavity wall insulation in a further 11; installation of large-scale solar PV arrays on the roofs of two halls and solar thermal panels on a third
• Student engagement activity which has resulted in an eight per cent reduction in electricity use across halls of residence
• 96 per cent of the University’s 10,000 PCs brought onto the PowerMan system, switching them to a low-power mode after a period of inactivity and saving 600 tonnes of CO2 a year.

Other sustainability programmes have been developed including:
• New buildings on campus designed to meet BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) ‘Excellent’ rating
• £800,000 invested in cycle facilities, including new cycle lanes, parking, storage and a cycle hire scheme for students
• A University-wide teaching and learning Grand Challenge to embed sustainability into the curriculum.

The 2012 Greenmetric league table, which surveyed the green credentials of universities in more than 40 countries, ranked Nottingham as the most sustainable university in the world.

Six million trees

The Woodland Trust’s aim is to celebrate The Queen's Diamond Jubilee with the planting of six million trees across the nation, forming a lasting legacy to celebrate Her Majesty’s reign and helping towards the goal of doubling native woodland cover in the UK.

The UK is currently one of the least wooded countries in Europe, with just 13 per cent cover compared to the European average of 44 per cent.

Georgina McLeod, the Woodland Trust’s head of Jubilee Woods, said: “We are absolutely delighted that The University of Nottingham has chosen to create a prestigious Diamond Wood. We very much hope that this inspires other landowners and communities to join us in paying a very special tribute to The Queen, while at the same time creating something living and lasting to hand on to future generations.

“Not only is this a chance to celebrate The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee but it’s also a chance for people to improve their local environment and create somewhere for residents to enjoy and be part of. In just 10 years the trees will be taller than the average person and the woodland will be full of wildlife for many people to enjoy.”

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Notes to editors: The University of Nottingham, described by The Sunday Times University Guide 2011 as ‘the embodiment of the modern international university’, has 40,000 students at award-winning campuses in the United Kingdom, China and Malaysia. It is ranked in the UK's Top 10 and the World's Top 75 universities by the Shanghai Jiao Tong (SJTU) and the QS World University Rankings. It was named ‘the world’s greenest university’ in the UI GreenMetric World University Ranking 2011.

More than 90 per cent of research at The University of Nottingham is of international quality, according to the most recent Research Assessment Exercise. The University’s vision is to be recognised around the world for its signature contributions, especially in global food security, energy & sustainability, and health. The University won a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education in 2011, for its research into global food security.

Impact: The Nottingham Campaign, its biggest ever fund-raising campaign, will deliver the University’s vision to change lives, tackle global issues and shape the future. More news

To celebrate Queen Elizabeth's historic 2012 Diamond Jubilee, the Woodland Trust is helping millions of people across the UK to come together and plant six million trees.

With HRH The Princess Royal as Patron, the Jubilee Woods project aims to create hundreds of Jubilee Woods and 60 special Diamond Woods, transforming our landscape in a generation and providing a lasting and meaningful tribute for many years to come. The Trust hopes neighbours, communities, schools and families will plant thousands of individual trees in their gardens, playgrounds and community spaces – each taking the chance to mark this special moment in history in a way that will stay with them forever. Schools and community groups can apply for free tree packs to help local people get involved in the celebration, or browse its range of Jubilee trees to find the perfect one for their garden.