Grove Wood campaign nominated for an award

The campaign to save Grove Wood has been nominated for the VOSCUR Community Campaign for 2009. Five diverse and excellent campaigns from across the city have been nominated, so just being nominated is a real bonus for us.

Sadly, we only found out we had been nominated very recently, so we are not sure how many votes we will have picked up. Anyway, it doesn't matter as we aren't campaigning to win awards, all we care about is saving our lovely wood and getting it in to safe ownership.

Find out more about the awards here: http://www.voscur.org/brispartnership#voscurcampaigns

Grove Wood tree news

At last! Bristol City Council have issued a five day notice to enforce the clearance of the public footpath in Grove Wood and the pruning of the trees that overhang Blackberry Hill.

The five day notice can be viewed here:
http://e2eweb.bristol.gov.uk/PublicAccess/tdc/DcApplication/application_detailview.aspx?caseno=KJA04PDN00K00

Here's what it says: Blackberry Hill/Broom Hill: Tree pruning to provide adequate clearance for vehicles, pedestrians & cyclists using Blackberry Hill.
Grove Wood Public of Way 153: Clearance of fallen trees to free access of public right of way. Covered by Tree Preservation Order No. 1092. (5 Day Notice)

Snuff Mills Action Group has been consulted on the proposal and we agree with the amount of work proposed with a few refinements.

We would like the clearance of the footpath in Grove Wood done with extreme sensitivity to avoid any disturbance of protected kingfishers, otters and bats. We are asking for all logs to be stacked well away from the river and for an ecologist to be on site at all times to ensure the work is done properly.

We have also called for one lime tree on Blackberry Hill to be less severely pruned than proposed and for a couple of elms to also be pruned a little less harshly.

We are confident that with these adaptations the footpath can be cleared and the wonderful trees along Blackberry Hill pruned sensitively without damage to their great beauty.

The five day notice system means that the landowner will be required to undertake this work and if he does not do it within a reasonable time the Council will go and do it for him - and charge him for doing it. Snuff Mills Action Group would like to congratulate Bristol City Council on its much more enlightened attitude to the issues surrounding Grove Wood. Long may it continue.

Garden renovations begin

On Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th May over twenty people helped with the replanting of some of the top beds of the garden with new plants to try to brighten it up a bit.

We planted a huge range of summer flowering plants that we hope will really make the garden a cheerful place to visit and enjoy. It will take a while for the new plants to establish, so please help this happen by keeping dogs off the garden and encouraging other dog owners to be equally responsible.

The next stage will be to clear the long top bed and for the Council to help us by removing the invasive plants in the big bed with the cherry tree growing in it. Once all this is done, we will replant these areas in June.

The renovations have been made possible thanks to a grant from the Co-op and money from Bristol City Council and now an additional cheque from John Lewis that arrived this week too. Thank you.

HELP MAKE GROVE WOODS A TOWN GREEN
You can help us preserve future access to Grove Woods by filling out an evidence form to say that you have used the woods for any of a variety of pastimes. Please print the two pages below, fill them in and return them to the Snuff Mills Action Group. Grove Woods are shown in green on the map above.

A Rhino in the valley?

It was revealed at the recent Council meeting to confirm the Tree Preservation Order by John Mair, the land agent for Grove Wood, that the ownership of the wood had been transferred to Rhino Group Ltd. We've now received the publicly available documents on this company from Companies House.

Its most recent return shows that it is a company that works in 'general construction and civil engineering' as well as 'forestry and logging'. The company was originally establised in 2003 as the 'Industrial Cutting Group Ltd'.

The company is registered in Stoke Bishop and it has a single Director, Lord Houshang Jafari Najafabadi, who appears to be the only shareholder. The Company Secretary is Yaser Jafari Najafabadi. Both reside in the location where the company is registered, along with many companies.

We can find no trace of any website or other publicly available information about Rhino Group Ltd. However, we are alarmed that it no longer seems to be the intention of Mr Jafari to use Grove Wood as 'private woods and gardens' as he has claimed in correspondence with the Council. He must now clearly see his interest in Grove Wood as some sort of commercial venture. Why else would he transfer it from his own personal ownership to that of one of his companies that has interests in construction, engineering, forestry and logging?

Thanks to Jake for undertaking this research. All the information provided here is publicly available from Companies House and no privacy codes have been broken by publishing this information. To be courteous, we have not published the precise location of where Rhino Group Ltd is registered.

Easter Egg Hunt and Spring Fair

Our Easter Egg Hunt through the Valley on Easter Monday was very successful and really appreciated by all who took part. Everyone said how much they enjoyed it, and how it made them think about the wildlife that is in the area, which is great news. A special thank you to Sue for organising it and for running it with just one other person as we were very short on helpers that day.

The Spring Fair took £205.06p and there was a steady trickle of people all afternoon and several people seemed to spend a fair bit. Everyone worked really hard from Snuff Mills Action Group to set it up and run the stalls, make the teas and clear up afterwards. Thanks to Hilary and Sue for running the White elephant stall, Andy and John for the book stall and Janet and Hilary(2) for organising the teas and coffees. A special thank you to Annette for some wonderful cakes decorated with easter chicks and rabbits and some lovely meringues from Lesley. They all went down well with a nice warm cuppa. Lots of member's of Chris' family helped on various stalls and Jill donated loads of toiletries, but the star stall was the Cake stall, run by Alan and his wife Joan, which took over £57! Joan made loads of lovely cakes and presented them beautifully and other people also made cakes to sell.

Thanks to everyone that came along. They'll be more events soon.

Valley Spring Clean

Over twenty people spent Sunday afternoon tidying up all of the rubbish from the valley. All sorts of rubbish was collected from old televisions to the usual detritis that people leave behind.

On a sad note a dead peregrine falcon was also found during the clean up. Its body will be passed on to make sure it was not poisoned as these birds sometimes suffer persecution, though we don't think this is very likely in this case.

Spring in the Valley

After a long hard winter, these cherry trees near the Snuff Mills garden have blossomed to let us know that it's all going to warm up soon and that summer is just around the corner. Many other trees are producing their first leaves, so soon the whole valley will have that special fresh green colour of springtime.

Being an ancient woodland, Grove Wood is host to loads of lovely wildflowers at this time of year. At the moment the wood anemones are at their best, but don't go in the woods too early because the flowers open up in the morning and close at nighttime. Soon it will be the turn of the wild garlic and bluebells. Can you believe someone wants to stop you from enjoying this?




Maybe this person should take some lessons from nature. Just look how these celandines have tried to disguise the ugliness of the container that he put in the wood last May. We recommend that you try to ignore this monstrosity and the ridiculous fencing that greets you as you enter Grove Wood. There is the sheer beauty of nature just beyond. Enjoy!

Dawn chorus walk

About twenty people were up with the lark on Sunday 29th March to listen out for the dawn chorus in Snuff Mills and Grove Wood. We heard woodpeckers tapping on the trees, magpies and crows squawking as the sun rose and blackbirds celebrating the dawn. The sounds of robins and great tits cheered everyone up even though it was so early.

Walkers went on a circuit of Snuff Mills and then enjoyed Grove Wood, providing further evidence that people use the woods for peaceful pastimes and so it should be designated a Town Green!

Garden progress

All of the Group's efforts to improve the garden seem to be showing results. Already we have loads of golden daffodils flowering along the edge of the garden and some of the plants added last year seem to be establishing really well despite the really cold winter.

We'll be giving the garden a Spring tidy up to prepare it for our planting weekend on Sunday 19th April between 10.00-12noon. Help us get rid of some nasty weeds. Bring tools and gloves.

On Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th May we will be planting up the whole garden with a huge range of new plants thanks to generous donations from the Co-Op and individual fundraising efforts. Come and join us to help make the garden a real splash of colour for summer.

TPO confirmed

Great news. Councillors confirmed the Woodland Tree Preservation Order on the whole of Grove Wood this afternoon. 50 people submitted comments to the Development Control Committee. 49 of them supported confirming the TPO while only one was against it. This was a submission by the landowner's agent.

People from the community gave impassioned statements calling for the TPO to be confirmed and the agent for Mr Jafari made a statement that included all sorts of accusations about the campaign and the role of the Council.

Bizarrely, the ownership of Grove Wood has now been transferred to Rhino Group Ltd, a company that the agent claims to at least partly own, although it is registered at Mr Jafari's House in Stoke Bishop. The company describes itself as being in the 'general construction and civil engineering' trade.

I think this is a clear signal that we must continue to be vigilant over Grove Wood by continuing to call for the upper footpath to be designated a Public Right of Way and for the whole wood to be designated a Town Green as well as calling for Grove Wood to be brought in to safe public ownership.

But for now it is time to celebrate the latest success in our campaign to save Grove Wood.

Defend the Tree Preservation Order

The landowner's objection to the Woodland Tree Preservation that currently protects Grove Wood will be considered by the Council's development control committee at 2pm on Wednesday 1st April. There are two things you can do to help.

1) Write to the Council requesting them to CONFIRM the Woodland Tree Preservation Order without any changes to it. The TPO is needed to protect the woods. The Council's own response to his objections are very strong and Snuff Mills Action Group agrees with their analysis.
You can see the Council's response and read the landowner's objections by following this link:
http://www.bristol.gov.uk/item/committeecontent/?ref=wa&code=wa003&year=2009&month=04&day=01&hour=14&minute=00
Just click on the blue bit next to Grove Wood agenda item.

Send your comments to democratic.services@bristol.gov.uk by 12noon on 31st March. Please be polite and courteous in your comments as this will go a long way with the Councillors.
Please also email us your comments so we can post it on this website for others to see - anonymously if you prefer. We will post our response to the objection to the TPO on here as soon as it is completed.

2) Protest outside the Council House at 1.40pm on April 1st - please bring banners and placards calling on the Council to stick to its guns and confirm the TPO on Grove Wood. Please let us know if you can come by emailing snuffmills@hotmail.co.uk

All of this is really important as we need to provide as much support to Councillors and show that they will be doing the right thing by protecting the trees in Grove Wood. So please make sure there are as many positive submissions supporting the TPO, by sending in a comment, however short.

Snuff Mills wildlife talk and open meeting

Nearly 60 people enjoyed local photographer and cameraman Richard Taylor Jones' fantastic talk about the wildlife in the mile around his home in Stapleton at our meeting on 23rd March. Richard has filmed badgers and foxes in people's gardens and elusive kingfishers along the river. Who'd have thought we now have ravens close to the Church or sparrowhawks hunting over Snuff Mills. Thanks to Richard for putting together such an interesting talk.

There was also an update about Snuff Mills Action Group highlighting all the Group's plans for 2009 including cleaning up the valley, renovating the garden and growing oaks and rare wild service trees for the woodland. There was also an update about the campaign to save Grove Wood which included encouragement for everyone to provide evidence for the plans to designate the area a Town Green so that we can enjoy it for all time.

Snuff Mills garden - under renovation

Thanks to a generous grant from the Co-op and our own fundraising efforts we have a magnificent £550 to spend on replanting Snuff Mills garden. Bristol City Council will match every pound we raise which means we have a total of £1100 to spend on new plants to really return the garden back to its former glory.

The garden used to be a much loved feature of Snuff Mills, alive with bulbs in Spring and full of colourful bedding plants in the Summer. These days its hard for the Council to put in as much effort in to tending its flower beds, so we are going to create a community garden instead.

Last year we cleared away lots of overgrown areas and even planted a few flowers to cheer the garden up. This year you can expect to see many more plants and colourful flowers. There will be regular gardening days throughout the year and a grand garden planting weekend in May. See the what's on section on the right hand side of this blog. We hope you'll join us for some fresh air and help make Snuff Mills a lovely place for everyone to visit.

Snuff Mills woodland project

The woodland above Snuff Mills is really valuable for wildlife and we know that many types of bird and bat breed and feed there. Badgers, foxes and deer also forage for food among the trees. The woodland mostly grew up after the quarrying ended, although the woodland above the car park was planted when the old quarry that was there was filled in.

We plan to improve Snuff Mills woodlands over the next few years by making and then putting up bird and bat boxes to encourage more of these creatures to make the woodland their home. We are also going to collect acorns and the seeds of the rare wild service tree from the valley and grow them on so that they can be planted in the woodland later. Oaks are the most valuable of trees for wildlife and we hope that a few more oaks in Snuff Mills will make it even better for nature.

The saga of Grove Wood Jan 2008 - Feb 2009

Grove Wood is in a Conservation Area which means that you must first apply for permission to fell trees over a certain size. But in January 2008 the new landowner, Mr. Houshang Jafari-Najafabadfi, flattened a large area of woodland opposite River View. People contacted the Bristol City Council (BCC) and other agencies and Council Officers were sent to stop the works. However, the damage had been done and where there were previously dozens of trees there was now a wasteland. The hillside had also been stripped of soil and the whole lot was piled up against the remaining trees to form a bank or 'bund' along the public footpath next to the river.

Believing that BCC would prosecute the owner and force him to replant what he'd cut down people were hopeful that the damage would eventually be put right. However, despite a public outcry, BCC decided that all of the trees that were felled were either 'dead, dying or dangerous' or too small and so the landowner was effectively given retrospective permission to fell the trees. Local people measured the diameters of the trees that were felled and found abundant evidence, that can still be seen today, that large healthy trees were actually felled.

Protected species such as kingfishers and otters had been regularly using the riverbank in Grove Wood. After the clearance otters disappeared but kingfishers took advantage of the extra cover afforded by the bund and started to build nest sites along the river. It was at this time that Snuff Mills Action Group (SMAG) was formed and Grove Wood soon became on of its top priorities.

In May 2008 a large white shipping container was planted in the wood. Once again no planning permission was sought by the owner and BCC again decided that this wasn’t illegal as they deemed it ‘permitted development’ because it was a ‘temporary’ structure to be used while work was carried out in the woods. The container is still there 10 months later and it has only been used for two very brief periods. BCC is now looking into exactly what ‘temporary’ means.

In June 2008 there was a period when wildlife was disturbed by workmen strimming away undergrowth next to sensitive breeding areas and along the riverbank. Smoke from fires hung over the valley for several days and this caused many residents to make complaints to the Council. One of the results of all this disturbance was that the kingfishers abandoned their nest in Grove Wood. Meanwhile, the landowner had put in an application to fell 27 large trees on the edge of the wood next to Blackberry Hill.

The landowner also tried to block access to the upper footpath that leads to Laundry Field. To begin with he placed plastic orange road barriers across the path, but these were removed by walkers almost immediately. This path has been used for generations as of right and SMAG is trying to get the footpath registered as a Public Right Of Way to preserve access. This seemed all the more urgent when the landowner had loads of metal fence panels erected along the edge of the lower footpath to block access to the rest of the woods. The fence was vandalised after just a few days and was left lying across the footpath, causing a hazard to walkers. BCC were approached about this but nothing was done until SMAG members removed the damaged panels from the footpath and stacked them behind the shipping container.

There was then a period of calm and the woods fell silent again. However, the otters took nearly a year to return and the kingfishers did not manage to nest successfully after all the disturbances.

After a hard-fought campaign with public protests and over 118 formal complaints from the public, BCC finally applied a blanket Tree Preservation Order (TPO) to the whole of Grove Wood in October 2008. This means that if any tree is damaged or felled, regardless of its size, the perpetrator can be prosecuted and heavily fined. The TPO is currently in force but it seems the owner is objecting to it. BCC will consider his objection, but people are left wondering why the owner would mind a TPO being placed on his woodland if he had no intention of removing trees or building on the land as he has frequently stated.

The Environment Agency (EA) had requested that the bund be removed as they considered it created a flood risk. However, the bund has actually become a haven for protected wildlife and so the EA were persuaded to take a more pragmatic approach to this and the bund will not now be removed - at least until this year's bird breeding season is over.

In January 2009, almost a year to the day after the original clear felling, the owner once again reappeared with his workmen and re-erected the fencing opposite River View to try to block access to the upper footpath. To prevent it from falling they hauled logs from the bund and dropped them haphazardly against the base of the fence. Nevertheless the fence has now partly collapsed as it did before. Complaints have once again been made about the unsightly appearance of the fencing and the container and of course the otters have disappeared again.

Addendum: The owner has since re-erected the fallen fencing and added circular and triangular arrangements of more fence panels to prevent it from collasping so that there are now many more panels in the woods and along the footpath. However, members of the public have once again removed the panels blocking the upper path and walkers, ramblers, joggers, etc are using it once more.

Snuff Mills history

Snuff Mills is the woodland and grassland between the car park at River View and the little 'Halfpenny' bridge that crosses the river to Oldbury Court. This land was never really part of the Oldbury Court Estate. It has a long history of quarrying for building stone dating back to at least the 1600s. While quarrying was important, much of the area was also used for growing timber and the land next to the river was used as a paddock for grazing animals. This area was known as 'The Hams' for many years and many older people often refer to going for a walk along 'The Hams' when they go for a walk in Snuff Mills.

There were at least two water mills between Halfpenny Bridge and River View. They were used for grinding corn, snuff and also cutting building stone. Snuff was ground at Witherlays Mill from about 1790 to 1843. This Mill no longer exists but you can see where it was in the lumps and bumps in the ground just before Halfpenny Bridge. This Mill was also the home of the legendary 'Snuffy Jack' who is thought to still haunt the valley. The Snuff Mill we know today was called Whitwood Mill and used for grinding corn and then cutting stone. It was excavated by the Avon Industrial Buildings Trust in the 1980s and restored thanks to the hard work of local historian, John Bartlett.

Bristol Corporation bought 'Stapleton Glen', now Snuff Mills, as a park for all Bristolians in 1926. The woodland was still recovering from being felled during the First World War to support the war effort. While the woodland started to grow back, the mills were all demolished and a bandstand built where Snuff Mill used to be. The old quarry that had formed a deep lake above what is now the car park was filled in during the 1950s and the slope planted with trees. Before this happened, the lake was a popular if rather dangerous place to go for a swim.

The gardens were kept by the first ranger, Ben Smith. They became a much-loved feature of the valley and were kept beautiful for nearly fifty years. The Council also improved the footpaths and gradually Snuff Mills became one of the most popular places to go for a walk in Bristol.

However, as budgets to manage Bristol's parks and open spaces were cut back during the last twenty years, the garden was planted with low maintenance perennial plants, paths were not resurfaced as often as necessary and benches were not replaced. The toilets were also voted the worst in the UK in a BBC TV programme a few years ago.

Snuff Mills Action Group was formed in March 2008 to support the Council in its efforts to put more resources in to Snuff Mills. The Group plans to work on the garden to return it to its former glory and increase the variety of trees in the woodland to improve it for wildlife. With an Action Group to care for it, we hope that Snuff Mills and the rest of the Frome Valley will be as fantastic to visit as Blaise Castle has become.

Grove Wood history

Grove Wood is about 17 acres of natural woodland on the other side of the River Frome from Snuff Mills park. It is a huge area of woodland, covering the side of the valley from Blackberry Hill to 'Laundry Lane' - the track that leads to Oldbury Court from Halfpenny Bridge.

Before 2008 Grove Wood was a peaceful place. The lower path was quite difficult to use and most people used the upper footpath to avoid the muddy patches and the fallen trees. In spring the woods smelled of wild garlic and it was quite a dark woodland because of the dense tree canopy. It was a place for nature and one of Bristol's special, less well-known places

The old tithe map from the early 1800s shows that much of the land was 'coppice' or a 'grove' and this helps to confirm that much of Grove Wood is an ancient one, making it especially important for wildlife. In the 1880s the land was given to the City of Bristol, with certain covenants, and subsequently passed on to the NHS. In 2000 it was sold to a consortium of people who set up ‘Frome Valley Conservation Ltd’. This company had the apparent intention of keeping the woods as a nature reserve. Shares were sold and many people bought them believing that this would secure the land for ever.

Frome Valley Conservation did not manage the woods. Only a set of steps were built next to the drain that runs down from the Hospital. Snuff Mills is well known for being alive with birds and animals, but the river next to Grove Wood is special because it was less frequented by humans, making it a safe haven for very rare otters, kingfishers, bats and other creatures that dislike being disturbed.

In November 2007 Frome Valley Conservation Ltd was wound up. This was announced in the London Gazette and none of the shareholders were informed or offered a refund for the shares they had bought. Instead two local charities were sent cheques. It seems that both the Avon Wildlife Trust and the Wallace and Grommet Appeal sent them back, most likely because of the way in which the shareholders were treated.

The 17 acres of land we know as Grove Wood was then put up for auction in December 2007. Bristol City Council (BCC) were contacted by several local people who were concerned about what would happen and they were told that the Council would be purchasing the woods. Indeed BCC did try to raise the funds for this but were slightly too late and had to pull out of the auction at the last minute. This left a local resident and one Mr Houshang Jafari-Najafabadfi in the bidding.

Mr Jafari won the bidding at the auction and officially took ownership on 23rd of January 2008.

Blog under reconstruction

We've decided to freshen up this blog for the Spring.

Please visit again soon.

If you have any queries about Snuff Mills Action Group, please email us.