Gateway to Nature: What’s happening this spring

As local resident with a young family, I know how precious this place is in helping people of all ages connect with nature. My relationship with the Wittenham Clumps started with a family visit during Covid lockdowns, and even today, on every family visit, we see or experience something extraordinary in this special landscape.

My role at Earth Trust is to lead our infrastructure development project, Gateway to Nature, and I’m pleased to share an update on the activity we will start to see on site from mid- February.

Gateway to Nature is all about making this place more welcoming. We’re making the landscape easier to visit in a car or on foot, easier to find a walking route to match your interests and time, and easier to grab a coffee or go to the toilet. I am delighted that more people will be able to access and benefit from this beautiful landscape. We’re doing it in a way which balances people and nature because I know just how much generational love there is for this place.

What’s happening on site?

In March, contractors will begin work to create the new track from Sires Hill, providing a new, clearer and safer access point for everyone travelling to the Wittenham Clumps landscape. This will lead to a new car park and new visitor café. The new layout will help ease traffic pressures and provide a better starting point for exploring the wider landscape with plenty of maps and way markers to help people on their way. We’re anticipating the first visitors using the new access track and car park in summer 2026.

Changes in the landscape

To build the new access track, we need to create the visibility splay required for safe entry and exit onto the existing road at Sires Hill. This means that some sections of hedgerow will need to be cut back or removed in the second half of February. Change like this can feel significant, and we have thought carefully about how to mitigate this as far as possible. Guided by our ecological and traffic consultants, technical approval from Oxfordshire County Council is now in place to ensure the least amount of hedgerow removal happens to meet safety standards.

Showing how wildlife and people can thrive in balance is part of the way we work. This Winter, our broader hedgerow ecological management programme planted 380m of hedgerow, creating new wildlife corridors and more diverse habitats. This new planting far outweighs what is being removed, ensuring a long-term gain for nature as the project progresses.

The material that is removed will be chipped and reused as woodchip, with larger branches and trunks relocated around the Clumps to create important deadwood habitats.  Creating these log piles has benefits for nature and people – and I know I’ll be looking under them in the coming years with my kids! Once open, and in the next planting season, visitors will see further tree and hedgerow planting.

Inspiring a love of nature

At its heart, Gateway to Nature builds on what Earth Trust has always set out to do: to inspire a lifelong connection with the natural world. Whether it’s school groups spotting a woodlouse under a log, families exploring the trails, or those who enjoy the feeling of the wind in their face on a walk across the landscape, this project is about creating more opportunities for people to enjoy the countryside in ways that are meaningful for them.

As we take these next steps on site, we remain focused on our wider purpose: people and nature thriving together, at a time when it needs our support more than ever.

I look forward to sharing more updates as the project progresses over the coming months.

More information about the Gateway to Nature can be found here.