To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs to outline the steps his Department is taking to increase public access to woodlands for physical activity.

My Department provides improved access and facilities within its forests, through partnership working arrangements with local councils and other others. The use of funding streams such as The Targeting Rural Poverty and Social Isolation (TRPSI) programme and Forest Park Enhancement Scheme has resulted in these organisations being able to access funds to develop facilities and infrastructure. For example, TPSI funding allocated £2.1 million to projects in 2020-21.

This partnership working has delivered significant investment in new and upgraded recreational facilities at many forests across Northern Ireland. Over the past five years, my Department has facilitated 30 projects in forests, in partnership with nine local councils. My Department plans to continue to develop the recreational use of our forests using this working model. The positive outworking of this approach has been evidenced by the recent Forest Service Visitor Survey, link below, which highlights a 91% increase in number of visits to forests in the period 2014 to 2019 from 4.7 million to 8.97 million.

Northern Ireland Forests Visitor Survey 2019 | Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (daera-ni.gov.uk)