Combing a passion for forestry and a passion for cycling and a passion for health and wellbeing. Initially working with the Silvanus Trust and the Forestry Commission, 1SW became a community interest company building and developing off-road cycling infrastructure across the South West. Initial work, funded by the FC and Sport England undertook market analysis of the potential for off-road cycling and concluded that the potential user group amongst leisure and infrequent cyclists was extremely large.
From this £4.6million of funding was obtained to build 5 cycle centres and 60km of cycle trail across South West England in a mixture of public and private forest with the aim of encouraging more people out cycling in a safe traffic-free woodland setting whilst also bringing in income for the forest owners.
Our Director, Jez Ralph, managed the initial funding and scoping exercise for this work. Following that he became a Director os the 1SW Community Interest Company (CIC) to oversee the establishment of the trials. The CIC was always a task and finish project and once the trails were completed the company was wound up.
It is the first steps in what we hope can be rekindled through Evolving Forests. In the future we hope we can use health & wellbeing as a mechanism for getting more people connected with trees & forests. We hope trees & forests can help more people lead healthier more vibrant lives.