RBC to plant over 15,000 trees and shrubs to create Rushcliffe Woods
Last updated: 11/12/2025
Rushcliffe Borough Council (RBC) has acquired 54 acres or 30 football sized pitches of land to plant over 15,000 trees and shrubs to offset carbon from its operations and keep it on track to be carbon neutral by 2030.
The Council are one of only a handful across the country that are currently investing in a project of this nature, it will transform former agricultural land in Upper Broughton and start to create Rushcliffe Woods in the next eight weeks, offsetting in time over 230 tonnes of carbon a year.
Partners met on December 10 to plant one of the first trees that will start the creation of the vast site that will also include meadows and wetlands with the thousands of native broadland trees funded by grant applications.
The project will offset 64% of the Council’s current carbon output or 16 houses worth of carbon annually and plant trees supplied by partners Greenwood Community Forest, also in partnership with Defra and the Foresty Commission.
The site will also give the village its first publicly accessible larger green space and assists with the Forestry Commission’s target to increase tree cover by two per cent in England to 16.5% by 2050.
Leader of RBC Cllr Neil Clarke said: “This is a significant moment in the journey of the longer-term sustainability of the Council’s carbon offsetting of its operations and make us on track to be carbon neutral by 2030.
“Since 2020 our Carbon Clever project has made considerable inroads into lowering carbon output such as with over £5m investment of measures at leisure centres in Cotgrave and Keyworth this year and now over 70% of our vehicle fleet running on electric or vegetable oil.
“We hope planting these thousands of trees and shrubs can be another way to highlight to organisations and businesses how to explore ways to offset their carbon operations and assist all the Borough to be carbon neutral by 2050.
“It’s also a key way to promote nature recovery and tree canopy coverage to also help us as a Borough meet our climate and ecological objectives.”
The site is also identified within the new Nottinghamshire Local Nature Recovery Strategy as an area that could become of particular importance for nature recovery.
Greenwood Community Forest’s Woodland Creation Officer Rachael Rickell said: “Since 2020 Greenwood Community Forest have supported landowners by offering grants to plant trees funded by the Defra Trees for Climate programme.
“We are very pleased to support Rushcliffe Borough Council in their aspirations to create this new woodland in their quest to become carbon neutral. We have to date supported over 190 schemes and planted over three quarters of a million trees, creating 578 hectares of new woodland.”