Project Background
A hillside restocking site near Stonehouse in Gloucestershire was ready for replanting following the felling of the previous timber crop. Managed by Pryor & Rickett Silviculture, specialists in professional woodland management across the Midlands and South West, the site was being returned to productive use with a native species replanting. The elevated position — with sweeping views across the surrounding lowlands — made for a visually rewarding site to work on, even if the off-road access created logistical challenges from the outset.
The Challenge
Remote access is one of the defining constraints on this type of hillside site. Getting over 3,000 shelters up to an off-road location requires products that move efficiently — the more trips needed, the higher the labour cost and the greater the impact on the planting programme. The site also hosts a range of browsing animals, though notably does not carry fallow deer, which slightly changes the shelter specification calculus compared to estates where fallow are present. Individual protection was still required for rabbit and smaller deer species. A cluster of shelters was also designated for the Vigilis-Bio UK-wide monitoring trial.
The Vigilis Solution
Just over 3,000 × 1.2m Vigilis Tree Shelters were selected, with the 1.2m height matched to the actual browsing threats present — a cost-efficient specification that avoids over-providing shelter height where the heavier deer species are absent. A key practical factor in the product choice was the nested five packaging format: Vigilis Tree Shelters are packed five to a bundle, dramatically reducing the number of loads needed to get shelters to the off-road hillside site. A cluster of 100 × 1.2m Vigilis-Bio Tree Shelters was installed alongside the main population as part of the national biodegradable shelter trial, chosen for their identical performance profile during the establishment period.
Outcome
Restocking is well under way on the hillside, with trees establishing across the site. The Vigilis-Bio cluster has been tagged and baseline-assessed as part of the formal monitoring programme, and will be revisited periodically to track how the biodegradable shelters perform in the exposed hillside conditions. The efficient delivery format that suited the access constraints here is a feature that Pryor & Rickett report as a consistent advantage when specifying Vigilis products for remote or off-road sites.
- Scale
- 3,000+ × 1.2m Vigilis Tree Shelters; 100 × 1.2m Vigilis-Bio Tree Shelters
- Product
- Vigilis Tree Shelters & Vigilis-Bio Tree Shelters
- Location
- Stonehouse, Gloucestershire
- Managed by
- Pryor & Rickett Silviculture
