A NEGLECTED piece of woodland in Windhill is being brought back to life as part of a scheme to get young people more engaged with nature.

Windhill Woods,, near Christ Church Academy, has become more associated with anti social behaviour, like drug taking and off road biking, than rambling and exploring in recent years.

But now thanks to Bradford charity and local councillor, work is being done to make the woods a place children want to spend time to get closer to nature.

For the past few weeks staff at charity e:merge has been working with pupils from Christ Church Academy to run forest schools there, where they venture into the woods to get involved in activities like den building, identifying different species of plant and trees and even cooking over a campfire.

The scheme has been supported by local councillor Alex Ross-Shaw, and it is hoped that other schools will start up similar sessions to give pupils valuable out of classroom experience.

James Stannett, youth and community worker at e:merge, said: “Councillor Ross-Shaw allocated a place for us to use, at the moment it is being used by people on quad bikes and for anti social behaviour.

“We wanted to get people to view the area a lot more positively and turn the area into a real asset for the community.

“If the area’s young people are able to see the benefit as having an area like this then they pass that respect for the area to their friends, family and the next generation.

“The forest school programme is about teaching much more than knowledge about nature, it improves self esteem and confidence as well as learning about the environment rather than staying in and playing on the X Box.

“In the six weeks we’ve been doing this forest school the young people have learned about fire lighting, leaf identification, team building skills and how to cook from an open fire.

“We’ve been holding these forest school sessions on Fridays, and the pupils really benefit from it.”

A lot of people don’t get out as much as they should, especially on some of the local estates, so land like this is a real asset.

“In future we’d like to get more people involved in these sessions, including some parents on weekends.

“Even if children don’t do well academically then often the forest schools give them real life skills that are useful to them.”