A £1.5 MILLION appeal has been launched for an enormous expansion of an ancient Bromsgrove woodland.

The Woodland Trust wants to double the size of Pepper Wood and plant an extra 35,000 trees.

It’s part of the Trust’s Big Climate Fightback which aims to plant a massive 50 million trees by 2025 – a fifth of what the government’s climate experts say is needed.

The charity want to buy up to 125 acres of farmland next to the 133 acres that make up Pepper Wood.

The land would be used to create new woodland, and now wildlife habitats. If that happens it would be going back to its original woodland state.

Toby Bancroft, the Woodland Trust’s regional director for central England, said: “Pepper Wood is a beautiful habitat that is treasured by visitors. Centuries ago the woodland used to stretch across the arable land that is there today.

“We are in a climate and nature crisis and planting more trees is the natural solution.

“We believe that buffering and protecting our valuable ancient woodlands, which represent just 2.5 per cent of land in use left in the UK, is a really good place for some of the extra trees we so desperately need.

The wood, more than 400 years old and dominated by oak and birch, was bought by the Trust in the early 1980s.

It forms part of the Feckenham Forest Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and is considered nationally important for its woodland, unimproved meadows and bird and invertebrate communities.

Heavily felled during the timber shortages of the 1940s, the Trust has improved the biodiversity for wildlife to thrive.

The extension land directly borders the northern boundary.

The hope is to start creating the areas of new woodland in the 2022 -23 planting season and is looking to complete planting by the end of 2025.

To back the appeal go to: www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/pepperappeal