A GOV.UK case study on Burrator Forest presents a practical example of environmental delivery at site level. The 353-hectare forest sits beside Burrator Reservoir on the edge of Dartmoor National Park in Devon, is owned by South West Water and managed by South West Lakes Trust, and forms part of a wider estate of more than 50 managed sites across south-west England. For Policy Wire readers, the significance lies less in a single intervention than in the management model. Woodland protection, public access, grazing activity and reservoir-side stewardship are being handled as connected issues, with spending decisions tied to evidence gathered on the ground.
The immediate pressure is livestock ingress. The GOV.UK case study explains that common grazing rights on adjoining moorland, combined with the absence of continuous separation from Trust-managed land, mean ponies and other livestock can enter the forest from time to time. Nearby farm animals can do the same, particularly where visitors leave gates open or boundary fencing is damaged. That access has carried a measurable cost. South West Lakes Trust reported the loss of about £5,500 of conifer trees to grazing over an 18-month period between 2024 and 2025. The planting had been established without guards, reflecting a preference not to use tree protection unless it is clearly required, but the experience showed that repeated breaches could quickly outweigh the savings.
The first response has been conventional but necessary. South West Lakes Trust has started fitting self-closing mechanisms to existing gates at Burrator Forest and intends to apply the same approach in future works. Volunteers are also patrolling fence lines and carrying out regular audits so that damage is identified quickly rather than after a full season of browsing. Across the Trust's estate, annual fencing maintenance already runs into hundreds of thousands of pounds. This matters because the issue is not only animal behaviour. The case study notes that when gates and stiles are not located where visitors expect to cross, fencing is more likely to be forced, cut or bypassed. In policy terms, access design and asset maintenance are part of woodland protection, not a separate public access question.
The more consequential trial sits within the Water Industry National Environment Programme. South West Water is working with tenant farmers to test Nofence collars that create virtual boundaries through GPS-enabled cattle collars rather than fixed barriers. Fifty collars were fitted in 2024 without reported problems, after which a further 50 were purchased in 2025. The data from those collars is now being used to map where cattle prefer to graze and when they are most active. That makes it possible to protect small, sensitive areas around trees and other vulnerable features instead of excluding stock from the wider site. The management aim is shifting from fencing cattle out to fencing priority assets in, which is a more proportionate use of land and capital.
The Burrator work also underlines that browsing pressure is not confined to livestock. South West Lakes Trust is working with Artemis Land Management Services on deer and grey squirrel surveys, additional fencing and selective culling where this is judged necessary. Artemis also maintains a regular on-site presence to deter browsing animals. Grey squirrel control measures are still being developed with Artemis, British Red Squirrel and local conservation groups because bark stripping continues to reduce the value of commercial tree stock. There is a workforce angle as well. The partnership model is being used to train personnel who can support ongoing woodland management, widening the Trust's forestry capacity while passing on rural skills that are often difficult to replace once lost. That is a delivery issue as much as a conservation one: without skilled labour, even well-designed interventions are hard to sustain.
Some of the most interesting measures are low-tech. The Trust plans to trial sheep's fleece mulch mats around individual trees as a deterrent to deer and other mammals, including voles. The idea comes from practical farm experience, but the case study notes an important compliance point: where fleece or other animal by-products are moved beyond the farm, they must be treated and licensed before wider use. Site observation is also shaping decisions. Managers have found that heavier footfall in some compartments appears to discourage deer, while sheep grazing in adjacent fields may reduce browsing pressure on nearby woodland. Taken together, these findings show why evidence-led management does not begin and end with digital tools; routine observation still influences which measures are likely to work.
The case study draws a useful contrast with Eurasian beavers at other South West Lakes Trust sites. Rather than creating a management burden, beavers have been reducing willow growth through browsing, which in turn lowers the need for thinning works. The Trust also reports that vegetation changes around reservoirs have improved angling access by preventing excessive overgrowth along the water's edge. The wider lesson is straightforward. Wildlife and livestock do not respond consistently to a standard template, and repeated spending on generic controls can be wasteful if managers do not adjust to what monitoring shows. Burrator Forest therefore stands as a measured example of how WINEP activity, routine maintenance, species control and site observation can be combined to protect young woodland while keeping public access and working agriculture in view.