About Coed Lleol/Small Woods Wales

Coed Lleol (Small Woods Wales) is the name for the Small Woods Association in Wales. We help to improve the health and wellbeing of people across Wales though woodland and nature based activities.

Click to find out about:

• Our History
• Our Funders
• Our Advisory Group

Our History

Small Woods is a national charity and company limited by guarantee, with woodland programmes in England, Wales and Scotland.  Small Woods was formed in 1988 as the national organisation for small woodlands, it has a significant track record in managing Social Forestry projects, as well as projects to promote sustainable management of small woodlands for social, environmental and economic benefit.

Coed Lleol (Small Woods Wales) was established in 2002, gaining over 15 years experience running community woodland events. We also established a support network for community woodland groups which now runs independently as Llais Y Goedwig.

Since 2010 Coed Lleol (Small Woods Wales) has been successfully running health and wellbeing activities through our Actif Woods Wales programme. Today this programme has grown from strength to strength with groups all across Wales.

Current projects include: 

• Actif Woods Wales
• Dyfi Biosphere Outdoor Health
• Green Health and Access West Wales
• Connecting People and Nature
• Lost Peatlands Project

Please visit our Projects page for more information. 

Our Funders

Coed Lleol (Small Woods Wales) currently runs a number of projects with a variety of different funders. The Actif Woods Wales project currently has funding from the Healthy and Active Fund (Sports Council Wales) and Natural Resources Wales. Other projects have funding from the Welsh Government Enabling Natural Resources and Wellbeing (EnRAW) Fund, Rural Development Programme, and the Heritage Lottery Fund.

 Our past funders include:

• Active Inclusion Fund (managed by WCVA, funded by European Social Fund)
• Big Lottery People and Places Fund
• Sport Wales
• Anglesey AONB Sustainable Development Fund
• Clywydian Range and Dee Valley AONB
• Neath Port Talbot County Council
• LEADER (RDP)
• Doyle Carte Charitable Trust
• Gwynedd Voluntary Development Fund
• Tesco Bags for Life
• Awards for All
• Anglesey County Council
• Wrexham County Borough Council

Our Advisory Board

We have a Advisory Board of representatives from a wide range of Wales-wide public and non-governmental organisations in the community, health and environmental sector. These include:

• Public Health Wales / Let’s Get Moving North Wales Network (Aled Hughes & Rachel Lewis)
• Working Well North Wales / Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board (Glynne Roberts)
• Bangor University (Sophie Wynne-Jones and Val Morrison)
• Hywel Dda Public Health Team (Jan Batty)
• Hywel Dda University Health Board  (Georgina Kersey)
• Public Health Wales (Angela Tinker)
• Natural Resources Wales (Bronia Bendall)
• National Exercise Referral Scheme (Jeannie Wyatt Williams)
• Welsh Wildlife Trust (Emily Foot)
• Woodland Trust (Jerry Langford)
• Llais y Goedwig (Maria Wilding)

If you are interested in joining the Advisory Board, please contact Coed Lleol (Small Woods Wales) Manager Amie Andrews [[email protected]] with information about your background and relevant experience. Membership of our Advisory Board is voluntary, but expenses are paid for those not in a paid role with their organisation.

Our Wellbeing in Nature Training Development Working Group

• Woodland Skills Centre
• Reconnect in Nature
• Cambium Training
• NPT Forest School
• Down to Earth
• Tir Coed
• Centre for Alternative Technology
• West Wales Action for Mental Health
• Hywel Dda University Health Board

We also work with a wide range of local and national referral organisations in each of our Actif Woods Wales areas.