NEARLY 50 people helped commemorate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee year by planting saplings in an area of woodland in Nether Stowey.

The Stowey Green Spaces Group invited community members to bring saplings to create an extension to Stowey Millennium Wood on Saturday, November 26.

The event marked the first day of UK National Tree Week, a campaign organised by the Tree Council to mark the start of the tree planting season.

A spokesperson said: “Almost fifty people turned up, including families with young children, to plant a variety of native broad-leaved trees over half an acre on land at New Stowey Farm, owned by Somerset County Council.

“Saplings comprised 12 different woodland species, including oak, beech, hazel, horse chestnut, holly, rowan and walnut.

“District and county councillor Michael Caswell planted an oak, and the Rev Eleanor King, rector of Nether Stowey, brought along a hazel sapling presented to her at the recent enthronement of the Bishop of Bath and Wells!”

Stowey Green Spaces Group is a community conservation organisation based in the village. 

Its volunteers have planted 1,5000 in Stowey Millennium Wood, Stowey Wood and the A39 Bypass Wood on land owned by the county council in recent years.

The group has benefitted from support from the Quantock Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) countryside volunteers, the Taunton Midweek Conservation Volunteers and family groups based at the Field Studies Council’s Nettlecombe Court.

Group chairperson Roy Osborne is also a member of Sedgemoor District Council’s Environment Champions Network and Somerset Wildlife Trust’s Team Wilder.

He says it is encouraging to see so many local organisations working together in response to the climate emergency and biodiversity loss.