We are the Forest Town Nature Conservation Group (FTNCG), a volunteer-led charity run by Mansfield residents. We started as a local ‘friends group’ for the whole of Forest Town in 2011 and became registered charity no 1157957 in 2014 when the community supported us to buy Spa Ponds Nature Reserve.
Spa Ponds, also known locally as ‘Gara Ponds’, is a site owned and managed by our group. It can be accessed from the south via the Clipstone Drive entrance in Forest Town, opposite the White Gates Pub. It can also be accessed from Mansfield Woodhouse via Spa Lane and Packman’s Bridge.
Funded by the Sherwood Landscape Partnership’s M2M Project (supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund).
Events and Volunteering Opportunities
Weather permitting, forthcoming Spa Ponds Volunteer Work Sessions (starting at 10 am) include:
- No sessions planned in December 2023
- Wednesday 24th January 2023 – tree planting (to be confirmed)
- Either Saturday 20th January or Saturday 27th January (to be confirmed)
- Wednesday 14th February
- Either Saturday 17th or Saturday 24th February (to be confirmed)
- Either Saturday 2nd March or Saturday 9th March (to be confirmed)
For work sessions we meet at the Clipstone Drive entrance to the Spa Ponds site. We have kindly received permission from the Whitegates Hotel pub (2 Clipstone Road East, NG19 0HS) for volunteers to be able to use their car park for our work sessions.
Thanks to the co-op
Thanks to the generosity of Co-op members the Forest Town Nature Conservation Group has been awarded more than £1,600 to support our work.
Other updates:
- 27th November 2023: Updated work dates and added Co-op thanks
- 23rd October 2023: Added work session for 25th November 2023.
- 23rd October 2023: Added Spa Ponds Invertebrate Survey (2023) to the documents library.