Since the Project's initial Feasibility Study in 2006, the political climate nationally and regionally has shifted, with the development of New Growth Points and increasing understanding of the impacts of climate change both placing stronger emphasis on the need for sustainable growth. Green infrastructure is seen within the New Growth Points as a key principle of sustainable growth and as a response to climate change adaptation and mitigation. Development of the Stepping Stones Project as a green infrastructure deliverer will place the Project in a good position to drive green infrastructure forward in partnership with other organisations within the sub-region.

This Green Infrastructure Delivery Plan provides guidance for the activity of the Stepping Stones Project and its partners for the next 20 years. It will allow for a more proactive approach to landscape scale planning and enable better integration and joined up thinking with other agendas to ensure that the benefits of growth are secured wherever possible. The Stepping Stones Project is an expression of a wider partnership that will look to achieve the vision for the Central Leicestershire area. This vision belongs to the partnership and it will be the role of the Project to help the partnership by bringing together and coordinating resources to help achieve the vision faster and more efficiently than if it did not exist.

This report examines the feasibility of establishing a community forest in Central Leicestershire.  The study focussed on the Stepping Stones Countryside Management Project area – a ring of 32 parishes encircling the city of Leicester.  Stepping Stones has been active since 1992 and is an ideal launching-pad for such a project.

For the purpose of the study, the following draft Vision was formulated by the Stepping Stones team;  “The Central Leicestershire area will become a mosaic of woodlands, farmland, open spaces and settlements that contributes to a dynamic and energetic multi-functional landscape for people and wildlife now and for the future”.  The project brief initially focussed on the potential for a community forest, but following stakeholder consultation and a review of land use patterns it was felt that planting significantly more woodland than is the English average is not realistic.  Nevertheless, an uplift in woodland cover is a vital component of an ambitious strategy for accessible and multi-functional greenspace of high quality – “Green Infrastructure” for the people of the area. The project definition was altered to the working title of a Community Woodland and Greenspace Project (CWGP).

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