Yorkshire District Deer Park Forest Plan

Overview

Forestry England's Yorkshire District is consulting on a newly revised forest plan for Deer Park Wood.

The long term vision for Deer Park woods is to continue the gradual increase of native broadleaf cover, manage veteran trees and their surrounding habitat to improve or maintain their condition status while increasing the diversity of species and age structure across areas of productive woodland.

Deer Park woods cover an area of 312 hectares of mixed broadleaf and coniferous woodland. It is situated approximately 3 km south-west of Helmsley on the southern fringe of the North York Moors National Park. The forest is a leasehold property where the conifer stands were established by the Forestry Commission between 1961 and 1976.

The woodland is situated across two landscape areas. Predominantly broadleaved gill woodland sits within the Narrow Moorland Dale (Ryedale) landscape character area and the predominantly coniferous woodland sits within the Limestone Hills (Southern Hambleton) landscape character area.

Deer Park Woods rich ecological value is closely associated with the areas of ancient woodland and high density of veteran trees. Castle Hill Deer Park  and Windy Pits SSSI is a remnant of relict wood-pasture and is designated for this reason. The site is notable for the presence of over 450 veteran trees.

Why your views matter

Forestry England cares for the nation's forests and woodlands and regularly develop forest plans to provide continuous improvement, management and development of our sites for the benefits of nature, economy, people and climate.

We value feedback which will be taken into consideration during the consultation period.