Breidden Forest Resource Plan – Approved 28 June 2024
Location and setting
Breidden Forest Resource Plan (FRP) includes Breidden Forest, Breidden Hill and three smaller satellite blocks, totalling an area of 253.2 ha. Nestled between the A458 Welshpool-to-Shrewsbury road and the River Severn floodplain, the FRP is predominantly coniferous but also contains substantial areas of broadleaves and open agricultural ground. Breidden forest lies on the Welsh side of the England-Wales border, with the eastern tip of the forest demarcating the line of the border. The town of Welshpool lies approximately 7 km south-west of the FRP.
The surrounding habitat of the Breidden FRP blocks consists of enclosed grazed farmland interspersed with hedgerows and smaller fragments of both broadleaf and coniferous forest. Breidden Forest and Breidden Hill contain a large network of Public Rights of Way that connect to the surrounding landscape, along with a public car park and a prominent historical landmark – Rodney’s Pillar – on the hill’s summit.
The Breidden FRP falls into two watersheds of the River Severn catchment: the River Camlad confluence to the Bele Brook confluence; and from the Bele Brook confluence to the Sundorn Brook confluence. Both watersheds have been rated as ‘Moderate’ under the Water Framework Directive assessment.
Location map
Breidden forest resource plan location map
Prioritised objectives
Objective 1: Ancient Woodland and Habitat restoration and improvement
Continue to identify and restore ancient woodland site features and areas of conservation interest within the FRP. There are opportunities to enhance ASNW and gradually restore PAWS across the FRP area. There will be opportunity for accelerated restoration and increased broadleaf connectivity through continuing to reduce larch stands. Great Crested Newt are present within the plan area and there is opportunity in the plan to enhance habitat for this species. Crags and screes and the flora they support that are part of the Breidden Hill SSSI are under threat in some parts of the plan and opening up this habitat will further enhance biodiversity at the site.
WGWE Key Priorities 2, 4 & 5; Area Statement Theme “Improving Biodiversity”
Objective 2: Protect the historic environment
Identify and protect important heritage and archaeological features, including the historic natural environment. At the time of this plan work is ongoing by NRW to restore Rodney’s Pillar and this will continue to enable the area to again be opened up to the public. There are scheduled areas and non-scheduled archaeological features that will continue to be protected during operations to preserve the historical value of these locations.
WGWE Key Priorities 5, 7 & 8; Area Statement Themes “Forest Resources” “Sustainable land, water and air”
Objective 3: Sustainable timber production
Continue to maintain a sustainable supply of timber production through the design of felling and restock species choice. There is good potential for diversifying species choice with regards to productive conifer within this FRP area to increase resilience and continue to supply timber products supported by good soils and exposure levels across much of the plan area.
WGWE Key Priorities 2, 3 & 9; Area Statement themes “Forestry Resources”, “Sustainable land, water and air”.
Objective 4: Woodlands for people
Maintain and improve visitors experience by providing a safe and enjoyable diverse environment. Public rights of way and other open access areas of the plan are well maintained, and this should continue. The continued management under LISS with more areas recruited in the future and other areas of gradually restoring ancient woodland will enhance the aesthetics of the forest in the long-term. The woodlands will be incorporated into the National Forest for Wales network over the next few years.
WGWE Key Priorities 7 & 8; Area Statement themes “Forestry Resources”, “Reconnecting people and places”.
Objective 5: Improve water, connectivity and habitat
Increased successional / riparian woodland areas for the improvement of habitat resilience and landscape scale habitat linkages. There are some good areas of Riparian Woodland already within the plan area but opportunities still exist to improve this further through thinning of conifers adjacent to watercourses on the southern boundary of the site to ensure UKFS compliance and link into habitat outside of the FRP boundary.
At the time of writing the FRP there are procedures in development for the management of nature networks which may be implemented in due course.
WGWE Key Priorities 2, 3, 4 & 5; Area Statement Themes “ Forestry Resources”, “improving biodiversity”.
Objective 6 Forest resilience
Increase structural diversity through the implementation of Low Intervention Silvicultural Systems. Focus needs to be put into maintaining a good level of thinning throughout this plan area to ensure the continued options for LISS which will further improve structural diversity and in turn improve amenity value, timber quality and resilience, whilst reducing impacts to soil & water. Further diversify species composition by carefully selected restocking and natural regeneration to increase resilience to pests and diseases building a robust forest for future generations
Objective 7: Enhance the landscape
To further blend the visual impacts of the woodlands into the wider landscape, helping to enhance the National Landscape Characters of the areas in which they sit. Gradually modify the woodlands to improve landscape amenity further: in combination with the use of LISS and diversification this entails slowly reducing hard/artificial breaks in the landscape, encouraging mixed woodland at boundaries and taking account of neighbouring features. Avoid clear-felling where possible and where it is necessary, restock in a landscape-sensitive manner
WGWE Key Priorities 3, 5, 7 & 8; Area Statement themes “Forestry Resources”, “Sustainable land, water and air”, “Reconnecting people and places”.
Maps
Indicative forest types & restocking map
Comments or feedback
If you have any comments or feedback, you can contact the Forest Resource Planning team at frp@naturalresourceswales.gov.uk.