CONSERVATION & ECOLOGY
A West Midlands historic landscape is gaining national recognition as a community trust reaching out to secure vital funding, including the help of a national treasure, as Greg Rhodes discovers when he meets Trust Manager Viv Cole and Golf Course and Park Manager Alan Merricks
for public support to help fund a sustainable future.
A
The actor is known globally for her masterful performances in the films Educating Rita and Billy Elliot, and for her classic comic timing in the BBC sitcom Dinner Ladies. Raised a stone’s-throw away from Warley
Woods, she harbours fond memories of her time enjoying its peaceful setting, the promotional video reveals. Response was instant, reports Warley
Woods Community Trust Manager Viv Cole - so too was reaction to her own media appeal on BBC Radio 4’s Open Countryand BBC Midlands Today in July.
Since Sandwell District Council passed the 100-acre Grade II Listed site to Warley Woods Community Trust in 2004, a passionate management team has raised £4.5m in Heritage grants, funding and public donations.
A startling achievement given the climate of financial austerity in the intervening years. But Covid-19 lockdown has presented
The exposure and reaction from those who ”
remember Warley Woods have far exceeded
anything that’s happened in our history
Woods Community Trust Manager Viv Cole
PC August/September 2020 29
fter sixteen years of successful community management, Warley Woods, Smethwick, has turned to national treasure Dame Julie Walters to appeal
further challenges to the viability of this historic green patch of Black Country. Celebrated landscape architect Humphry
Repton made fine use of the lie of the land with its spectacular scenery and panoramic views, which he incorporated into his 1794 masterplan for the Warley family estate. Birmingham Council demolished Warley Abbey some years ago, leaving only cellars, the ice house and the stable block (which later burnt down) - an archaeological dig thirteen years ago revealing the extent of what lay underneath. The site’s grandeur faded over the centuries however and, like many a magnificently manicured English landscape, was in danger of being consigned to history’s forgotten pages. Since operating as a Trust, the Woods have blossomed into a firm leisure and amenity favourite with a strong local and regional catchment. Under the fourteen- strong board of trustees’ strategy, Viv and her dedicated management team are spearheading a vigorous volunteer force numbering more than 400 to maintain and improve the Woods public appeal. “Starved of investment for many years,”
Viv explains, “the site had no paths, fencing, gates, bins or play area - just two benches and a drinking fountain reduced to a lump of concrete sitting among the nettles.” “We now run a safe, thriving, warm and welcoming community space providing top- class facilities, events for everyone and an opportunity for anyone to get involved at any level.”
Bolstering Warley Woods’ reliance on grants and donations is an increasingly
Dame Julie Walters
important revenue stream from the 9-hole golf course standing within its boundaries. The first home of Edgbaston Golf Club from inception in 1890 until it moved away early next century, Warley Woods reopened as Birmingham’s first public golf course in 1921.
The golf club is run separately from the
Trust and enjoys a small, steady private membership income. The course also attracts some 6,000 pay and play Trust golfing customers, tempted by the playing quality and competitive green fees. “We live continually on a financial knife- edge and 2020 is a year like no other,” states Viv. “Good years on the golf course have given Warley Woods the cash to fall back on in hard times.” “The exposure and reaction from those who remember Warley Woods have far exceeded anything that’s happened in our
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