Friends of Belvoir Wood - Belvoir, Belfast

Site Description

Friends of Belvoir Wood are a woodland creation site positioned between Belvoir Forest Park, the Knock Dual Carriagway and Belvoir Housing Estate on the southern edge of the city of Belfast in Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Housing Executive gifted the land in 2000 as one of the 51 Woods On Your Doorstep (WoyD) sites in Northern Ireland. The development and first 5 years maintenance of the 51 sites was 50% funded by the Millennium Commission.

The development of the Woods on your Doorstep site builds on the Friends of Belvoir Nature Reserve created over the previous 15 years by the Friends of Belvoir, a group of people originally brought together to lobby to prevent a road being built through Belvoir Forest Park. This consisted of a series of 3 ponds, a wildflower meadow and 2.6 hectares of tree planting.

Following consultation with the local community and the Friends of Belvoir group, an additional 2.3 ha was planted to extend the site in 2000 by contractors, the local community, children from Belvoir Primary School and members of the Guide Association taking part in an Environment Challenge. The gravel paths were resurfaced, one of the bridges was upgraded and an information board was erected to inform visitors about the site. The 3 ponds were cleaned out and dredged over a 2 year period.

A wild flower meadow is maintained through an annual cut in August/September each year. The burnet moth and orchids are among its valued species. A natural spring rises close to Belvoir Drive and forms the stream flowing though the centre of the site. The Friends of Belvoir group developed a series of 3 ponds along the route of this stream.

Public access is provided throughout this Woods on your Doorstep site, with grass paths extending the hardcore path access routes installed by the Friends of Belvoir in the original design.

Each WoyD site had a feature created to mark and celebrate the millennium. In the Friends of Belvoir Wood this is a carving of a red squirrel sitting within the open area, bringing attention to the valuable habitat in the area which is one of the last heartlands for the red squirrel in Northern Ireland.