Healthy Woods: healthy lives

This afternoon it is my great pleasure to host a parliamentary reception for the Woodland Trustentitled ‘Healthy woods: healthy lives’. The connection between woods, trees and public health – both physical and mental - is one that we instinctively know to be true. It is a connection that deserves greater attention and can make for better policy making in the future because it improves people’s lives and saves public money in the long run.

This afternoon’s reception will bring together MPs, peers, civil servants, grant giving bodies, local authorities and businesses to celebrate the Woodland Trust’sVisitWoods project and hear how to build on its legacy. VisitWoods has been a large scale, grant funded partnership aimed at providing information about all accessible woodland online and to promote the value of woodland for recreation and health. Its outreach work has yielded some great achievements.

Two examples are especially worthy of attention:

In East Durham – an area with high levels of socio-economic deprivation - the Woodland Trust has engaged 5500 individuals in visiting woodland. The groups have included children with autism, stroke survivors, adults with learning difficulties, Dad’s groups, visually impaired children and school nature groups.
Secondly, one of the most profound outcomes of the project has been the discovery of the relevance of visiting woods to those living with dementia and their carers. Visitors to woods have found that the smells and sounds trigger long forgotten memories and promote a feel good factor.

What the project has shown above all is that by providing knowledge and confidence you can unlock the potential of natural wooded spaces to people who live nearby who then want to share what they’ve found for the benefit of others.

I am fortunate enough to have two of the Woodland Trust’sfinest ancient woods in my constituency – Wormley and Hoddesdon Park woods. They are well visited and add enormously to the quality of life and well-being of my constituents. One of the key messages of this afternoon’s event is that we need to make those kind of opportunities available to a wider body of people.

At present only 14% of the population have a wood within walking distance of where they live. I’m delighted that Nick Boles, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Planning will be addressing the gathering because we need to ensure that more accessible woodland is a key feature of the communities of the future and central to good planning policy. Another change that needs to happen is that decision makers in health policy need to capitalise on the value of wooded green space as a preventative health care tool.

Finally, to deliver lasting change it is important to have better joined up working between the health, environmental and planning agendas, each of which currently sits within the purview of three different departments. Only by doing this will we be able to deliver the types of lasting change that will truly make an impact.

I hope that this afternoon will prove a key milestone in the journey towards the country realising the potential of woods and trees to improve lives.