Report to Mawnan Parish AGM

The Friends of Meudon Woods. We’re a community group who help to look after the woods. We began by clearing the permissive paths. The ones coloured green. And we do this twice a year.
In the last 12 months we’ve spread our wings…
The bottom path gets very boggy in winter. We’re working with Cornwall Council to re-open the original route along the old farm track. We hope that this will be better drained and provide an all-seasons path.
We had our first work party for volunteers. We started clearing plastic tree guards and barbed wire from the woods. There are about 5000 tree guards and about 3km of barbed wire and sheep netting. We started at the southwest end. ​ Our long term aim is to sweep through the woods down to Maenporth.
The mess left by Storm Goretti has kept us busy since January. We cleared as much as we could by hand. ​We raised over £1300 to engage forestry workers to clear away some of the larger trees. The remaining trees that are still hung up over the paths will be dealt with by County Farms.
Where there are gaps ​in the canopy we’ve started planting trees. All natives; where possible grown from local seed.
If you’ve walked the top path recently you’ll have seen that we’ve cleared a ride through the woods. Walkers can now stop and enjoy a view of Maenporth Beach from the
top path. And we’ve provided open areas ​important for wildflowers and butterflies.
We have 30 enthusiastic members. And a handful of generous benefactors who help us fund professional forestry workers.
We have a website which we advertise on notices in the woods. Just scan the QR code or Google ‘Meudon Woods’ and you can find a map; list of our activities; how to contact us​;​ how to become a member; and lots of information about birds, butterflies, plants and fungi that you can find in the woods.

… the next 12 months
The main event will be the extension of Meudon Woods. This is a Carbon Zero initiative by County Farms.
Meudon Farm ​is a County Farm and has just been re-let. A corridor of land has been taken out of the farm to plant new woodland. Meudon Woods will be extended so that they run all the way from the new community field down the south side of the stream to Maenporth.
We suggested that a new permissive path should be created to connect the community field directly to the ​o​ther paths that run down to the beach. There’ll be a new bridge. The Friends will look after the path.

If we zoom in a bit. This is the very latest plan showing a few tweaks to the scheme after consultation. The new woodland now forms a single continuous area​ that has been extended to link directly to the community field and public footpath. And in front of residential areas the height of woodland has been reduced. They are hoping to make a start this winter.
Back in the existing woodland we​'ll ​b​uild on last year’s work - all the things I’ve already mentioned.
We’re also working on plans to ​install seating and nest boxes.
Longer term we are developing strategies to control invasive plants:
- in the old woodland our concern is the non-native 3-corned leek / garlic. We’d like to prevent
it from taking over the bluebells;
- in the new woodland our main target is the Monterey Pines. These are over-planted and grow much faster than anything else. We’d like to thin these out to allow native trees to flourish.
In a nutshell we’re trying to improve access and increase biodiversity in the woods.
2026 has been a vintage bluebell year - if you missed it be sure to put it in your diary for the last week of April next year.
Thank you.