Strategy Area Description

As a whole, the strategy area is poorly furnished with significant areas of woodlands, either semi-natural or plantation; only 7% of its land area is forested, significantly less than the national average (13.1%); by contrast, woodland cover amounts to over 15% in Gateshead. Ancient semi-natural woodland is particularly scarce in the area; this habitat is important for a host of specialist woodland species.

In a landscape context, the wider part of the strategy area is dotted with small pockets of conifers, mixed plantations, and mixed deciduous woodland but most of the area's woodlands are under 20 hectares in extent; many considerably smaller. Scattered across the strategy area are small areas of coniferous trees and farm shelter belts. These are not important for woodland species per se, but can be important, in the wider landscape, providing additional wooded habitat and refuge for many species.

The eastern and north east portions of the strategy area are particularly poor for woodland cover, with under 5% of the land north of the Wear, from Sunderland into and across South Tyneside being wooded. The area's most extensive tracts of woodland are concentrated in the lower Derwent and Wear valleys.

The lower Derwent valley (Gateshead) contains a suite of important woodland sites that include Milkwellburn Woods, Chopwell Woods, the Gibside Estate, Spen Banks and the Derwent Walk Country Park. Much of this large woodland mosaic is deciduous, some is secondary but a large proportion is ancient. There are large conifer blocks, for example at Chopwell Woods (c.360ha), where previous ancient woodland was over-planted with softwoods.

The City of Sunderland possesses a significant woodland resource, mainly along the Wear valley downstream of the Lambton Estate to North/South Hylton, with particularly important sites at Ayton Woods and Hylton Dene.

South Tyneside, excepting for areas planted during the 1990s (for example Colliery Wood, Boldon), has traditionally supported little woodland and this remains the case. The largest areas of mature trees in the South Tyneside area, other than isolated small pockets, are in cemeteries for example Jarrow Cemetery, or the mature plantations of public parks, such as West Park and Redhead Park (South Shields).

In contrast to much of the strategy area, western Gateshead has extensive woodlands, especially in the lower Derwent valley. Most of the native broad leaved woodland habitat in the strategy area is found there, along the Stanley and Barlow Burns and in the upper Team valley.

Woodland: Ancient woodland

Ancient woodland in the strategy area is a scarce resource concentrated in the Derwent valley (Gateshead), with smaller amounts in the Wear valley (City of Sunderland).

The best examples are in the Derwent valley, for example the Thornley Woods and Gibside SSSIs, with others being found along a corridor to the west of the South Hylton Bridge at Ayton's Woods and in the Cox Green area of the Wear valley. There are none in South Tyneside.

In terms of native broad leaved tree species, the most important species represented in these woodlands are oak, ash and, before the onset of Dutch elm disease, wych elm, plus the non-native sycamore. There is a healthy representation of other species, depending upon soil types and local conditions. This includes birches, wild cherry, rowan, holly, as both a tree and a shrub, with alder in damp areas, and some rarer species, such as small-leaved lime. Typical shrubs in such woodlands include hazel, hawthorn, blackthorn, elder, guelder rose and honeysuckle.

Woodland: Ancient replanted

These are ancient woodlands that have been felled and replanted (often with conifers) but which have never lost their woodland cover. These retain some of the greater biodiversity value, which is never present in newly planted woodlands. These woodlands are richer than 'simple plantations', as their floral and fungal complexes, and the soils associated with ancient woodlands have usually been, at least in part, retained.

The greatest concentration of this habitat is in the lower Derwent valley (Gateshead). A good example is the extensive woodland block at Chopwell Woods where ancient oak woodland was over-planted with softwoods following the removal of its native broad leaved trees. The wider site here retains remnant areas of abutting ancient woodland.

Woodland: Semi-natural broad-leaved

This habitat comprises a range of broad leaved tree and shrub species varying in age and structural diversity which may have developed over relatively long time periods, but which is not 'ancient'.  Some such woodlands are 'semi-natural' and their flora and fauna reflect this. Collectively, the many scattered blocks of such mixed deciduous woodland across the strategy area form one of its largest semi-natural habitats.

Good examples occur along the Wear, to the west of the City of Sunderland, where an extensive network of such woodland stretches from Mount Pleasant downstream to Coxgreen. On the north-facing slopes of the Tyne valley (for example at Ryton Willows), a range of similar woodlands occur. 

Woodland: Broad-leaved and mixed plantation

Planted woodlands, comprising broad-leaf and/or a mix of broad-leaf and coniferous trees, occur across much of the strategy area. Such woodlands may be mature and of a considerable age or more recent; many such smaller woodlands were planted after the Second World War.

A high proportion of the strategy area's 'woodland resource' falls into this category, in part, because many former colliery spoil heaps and other post-industrial areas were 'restored' through such woodland creation. This habitat is particularly prevalent to the south and south west of Sunderland and in parts of Gateshead on former colliery and open cast sites for example Watergate Forest Park in Gateshead, and Colliery Wood in South Tyneside. Many of these projects were completed through the work of the Great North Forest (1990 to 2005), sometimes supported by the Woodland Trust, for example the extensive planting near Hedley Hall, Gateshead, in the upper reaches of the Team's watershed.

Other examples of this habitat are found at the 'riverside parks' of South Tyneside (for example Hebburn Riverside Park) and Gateshead (for example Bill Quay Riverside Park) where such planted woodland straddles the Local Authority boundary.

Woodland: Coniferous

These woodlands are usually monocultures of coniferous tree species. They tend to be species-poor in terms of trees and shrubs, and often lack structural diversity and suffer badly from shading. Consequently, they are of less value for wildlife than native woodlands.

Nonetheless, in the wider countryside, such plantings can be of some value for common bird species (for example chaffinch) and more specialised species (for example goldcrest and coal tit). They also provide cover for roe deer, fox and badger. Many such woodlands are grown as timber crops, others as landscape features for example shelter-belts.

There are larger areas of commercial timber growth in some parts of the strategy area (for example in the Ravensworth Estate, Gateshead). In Gateshead, there are further significant areas of coniferous woodland in the upper Team valley and on the slopes of the Tyne valley (for example Guard's Wood) but the distribution of most such woodland is rather patchy.

Where such plantations are of a varied age structure and a more diverse species mix they can prove valuable for some wildlife, birds especially (for example crossbill), though such woodlands are invariably less biodiverse than their semi-natural, broad leaved counterparts. Some of the more interesting examples in the strategy area are to be found in the Gibside Estate (Gateshead).

Woodland: Wet woodland

Wet woodland usually occurs on poorly drained soils and in terms of representative tree species, is dominated by alder, downy birch and willows. It is found on floodplains, as a successional habitat, or in association with fens and bogs, in peaty hollows, along stream sides or where poorly draining ground is fed by hillside flushes.

This is a scarce habitat in the strategy area. The only significant resource is found in the valleys of the Derwent (for example Strother Hills), the Team (for example Ridley Gill), and along a tributary of the Tyne, the Barlow/Blaydon Burn (for example Bog Wood), all in Gateshead; with a small example of alder carr near Hetton Bogs in the City of Sunderland.

Hedgerows

Ancient hedgerows, such as medieval parish hedgerows that were in existence prior to the Enclosure Acts of 1720 and 1840, are an extremely restricted habitat in the strategy area. No such hedgerows are known to exist in South Tyneside or the City of Sunderland, and only limited amounts in Gateshead such as those along Clockburn Lonnen in the Derwent valley.  Most strategy area hedgerows date from after the periods of enclosure between the 16^th and 19^th centuries.

Away from the urban areas and river valleys, the area retains a relatively widespread hedgerow resource but with a limited number of hedgerow trees. There has been much degradation of this in recent decades, largely due to poor management; some have been lost for example along the coastal strip between South Shields and Whitburn.

The area's hedgerows are dominated by a relatively limited suite of woody, shrub and tree species. These include (in roughly descending order of frequency of occurrence) the shrubs hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel, elder, dog rose, holly and bramble; and the trees ash, oak and sycamore, as well as holly which often appears as a hedgerow tree. Other woody species that might be represented include gorse, ivy, wild privet, guelder rose, crab apple and honeysuckle.

This habitat, with its associated hedge-bottom flora, is important for invertebrates (for example common butterfly and bumblebee species), small mammals (for example bank vole), foraging and commuting bats, and is hugely important for the birds of the wider countryside; providing these with feeding and breeding sites. These 'living lines in the landscape' also play a crucial role in supporting habitat connectivity.

In the more rural parts of the strategy area, the landscape is criss-crossed by hedgerows running along roadsides and between copses or larger areas of woodland. In such habitats many of the common hedgerow species, both resident (for example blackbird, song thrush, robin, dunnock and wren) and summer visitors (for example whitethroat and willow warbler) are present. Where hedgerow trees occur, for example along Tunstall Hope Road, City of Sunderland, species such as greenfinch, goldfinch and chaffinch occur, joined by blackcap during the summer. If the hedgerow trees are mature enough for larger cavities to develop, hole-nesting species, like stock dove, and predatory species such as kestrel and little owl may be present.