Frequently Asked Questions

We are Friends of Goit Stock Wood. We are a community group and registered charity formed of residents local to Goit Stock Wood in West Yorkshire, UK. Read more about us.

Yes, we are a Charitable Incoroporated Organisation, a type of registered charity. We are registered with the Charity Commission, the government body that regulates charities in England and Wales, and we have to abide by their rules. Our registered charity number is 1213780.

You can search for our charity number or name using https://www.gov.uk/find-charity-information which will take you to this page.

You can read more about our charity and see our constitution on our About Us page.

Email contact@goitstock.org.uk or use this form. 

Goit Stock Wood is a 70-acre area of ancient woodland which has two becks (large streams) flowing through it, and several substantial waterfalls. It is home to a wide variety of plant and animal species, both on the land and in the water. 

It is open access land and is open 24/7 and is accessible on foot using the public footpaths through the wood. It is, and has been for over a century, a popular spot to visit, for walking and to look at and enjoy spending time with nature. 

We want to maintain the wood and ensure that visitors can enjoy it for centuries to come.

See this page for details.

No, not at present. The wood is currently owned privately, although it is accessible to the public via the footpaths and public rights of way through the wood. We are hoping to buy the wood so it can be maintained for the benefit of the community, but at the moment we have no official connection with the wood or its current owners.

Currently, the wood is private land. While it is open access and common land - so the public are allowed to access it - the fact that it is privately owned has various drawbacks. By placing the woodland in public ownership we hope to:

• secure public access for generations to come, and provide a facility that individuals and community groups can use for enjoyment, leisure and exercise, enhancing physical and mental health

• provide opportunities to engage local residents in volunteering and caring for the woodland

• manage the wood and the beck in such a way as to enhance biodiversity - making healthy habitats for a wide variety of plant and animal life, both on the land and in the water - and making sure that it is looked after for years to come

• engage and educate visitors about nature and the importance of looking after it

For more information, see our vision, mission and values.

The wood is not owned by Bradford Council; it has always been in private ownership. It is currently owned by the owners of the Harden Park Homes site. 

Bradford Council, like all councils, are currently facing severe funding pressures that would prevent them from buying the wood. (Although they have provided us with a small grant of £100 from Shipley Community Chest funding to support our start-up and publicity costs).

Harden, Wilsden and Cullingworth Village/Parish councils also do not have funds available to buy the wood. Harden Village Council have supported us in non-financial ways and we are keeping in touch with all the village councils regularly about the project.

All outdoor public space has risks associated with it. We have had discussions with insurers and they have indicated that the owner's liabilities are not particularly burdensome, and the insurance costs will be reasonable. We will be carefully considering the risks and potential liabilities and taking professional advice on how to manage this before confirming we will proceed with the purchase.

In brief, our plan is to raise funds from the community (local individuals and local businesses, plus grants and anyone else who will donate!), and purchase the wood. We then hope to maintain and restore the wood in order to enhance biodiversity, and educate the public about looking after it, in line with our vision.

Goit Stock Wood has been in private hands for centuries, and it has been a long time since it was last up for sale, so if the community don't buy it now we might miss our chance for a generation or more. 

Goit Stock Wood was registered as an Asset of Community Value (ACV) in March. This gives the community a period of six months to put together a bid to buy the wood, during which time it can’t be sold to another bidder (though the vendor is under no obligation to sell to the community group). The ACV deadline is towards the end of September, so we need to get together as much money as possible before 12 September so we can put together a strong bid for the wood.

The list price of the wood is £195,000, though of course we hope that might be negotiable. There will also be legal and other fees to pay, plus costs involved in fundraising, and then we'll need funding to maintain the wood once we've bought it.

We will raise the money through a combination of:

• donations from local residents, visitors and people who love the wood (please donate!)

• Gift Aid on private donations

• fundraising activities such as events in the local community

• sponsorship and donation from businesses

• grant funding

• possibly, larger donations from philanthropists

If you are aware of other sources of funding we should consider, or can help with any of the above, please contact us.

The wood could be bought by a private buyer. There is no guarantee what this buyer's motives might be or what they will do with the wood.

True, the site (excluding the Park Homes site which is not included in the sale) is mostly a steep-sided valley, so it's not ideal for building land. The footpaths are public rights of way and there are some protections on the site (it is registered common land and ancient woodland), but that does not guarantee that the purchaser wouldn't try to exploit the land in some other way, such as felling trees for timber or doing other activities which could be destructive to the environment. There's also no obligation on the landowner to ensure the health of the woodland for the long term, for example by removing or managing invasive species. Even when private landowners have legal obligations for example to maintain footpaths, they don't always fulfil them, and it is difficult for the authorities to enforce this.

We believe that as a community group and registered charity, set up with the best interests of the woodland first and foremost, we would be the best custodians of the woodland for generations to come. As a charitable incorporated organisation (which is its own legal entity) managed by trustees who are legally bound to act in the organisation's best interests, Friends of Goit Stock Wood has been set up so it can outlive the current trustees.

We would love to hear from anyone who might be able to help with our project team - whether that's with fundraising, PR, or some special skills (maybe you're a solicitor or an accountant who could help us - or maybe you're just a keen and enthusiastic volunteer?). If that's you, please Contact us.

To keep updated about opportunities to help, sign up to our email newsletter.

We are a form of charity called a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO). A CIO is a bit like a limited company in as much as it is its own separate legal entity. That means the CIO can enter contracts and own assets (including land) in its own right, and they are legally separate from the trustees' assets. A CIO is unlike a limited company in that it does not have shareholders. The trustees are the "guardians" of the CIO but they don't own it. The trustees are legally bound to act in the organisation's best interests.

Trustees can of course be replaced (and in future we may decide to appoint more than our current five trustees), which means that Friends of Goit Stock Wood has been set up so it can outlive the current trustees and it could be around for hundreds of years to come! (If you would be interested in becoming a trustee, please contact us).

As a registered charity we are regulated by the Charity Commission for England and Wales. You can find out a lot more about the Charity Commission and the rules we have to follow on the gov.uk website.

Friends of Goit Stock Wood has no paid staff. All our trustees are volunteers and we have more volunteers that help us with other activities such as fundraising. We have kept our administration costs to the bare minimum because we want as much money as possible to go into the wood (our trustees have funded a lot of our administration expenses out of their own pockets!). We have never used any paid fundraisers.

We do not intend to hire staff in future, though of course for some purposes we might need to use specialist contractors, such as solicitors to administer the purchase and possibly if we are successful in buying the wood we might occasionally need tree surgeons, builders to help repair paths, or the like. If we do this we'll go through a process to ensure that we get a good deal, just like you would if you were getting work done on your house.

As of 24 June 2025 we are a registered charity, but we are waiting for HMRC to approve us for Gift Aid purposes, which can take a few weeks. So if you are a taxpayer, it is better to wait until we can collect Gift Aid on your donation, to increase it's value by 25% at no cost to you. If this applies to you, you can make a pledge now or sign up to our mailing list and we'll contact you when we are ready to take the payment.

If you aren't a UK taxpayer or you want to donate without Gift Aid, you can donate now here.

Our charity's purposes (objects) are to support the conservation and protection of Goit Stock Wood and to educate the public about the conservation of Goit Stock Wood. We can do this even if we don't own the wood, so if we can't buy the wood we would try to work with whoever does own the wood to help maintain the wood and ensure it is open for the public to enjoy.

If you want to give us a donation that can only be used to fund the purchase of the wood (and refunded to you if we can't go ahead) you can do so here.

A scheme that allows charities recognised by HMRC to recover some of the tax paid by taxpayers who donate to the charity. It allows charities to claim back 25p for every £1 donated by eligible donors. For more information see https://www.gov.uk/donating-to-charity/gift-aid

When you donate through our website, individuals can pay by either credit/debit card or bank transfer. We can also accept donations by cheque through the post if you prefer.

We ask that business donations and business sponsorships are to be paid by bank transfer only (that way we can send you a proper invoice, and business credit/debit cards have higher processing fees, which would reduce the value of your donation).

Bank transfer is the easiest way to ensure that 100% of what you give goes to us, as we don't have to pay any fees to process a bank transfer. But we realise that credit/debit card donations are convenient and so we provide that option for individuals. If you are donating a larger amount, please consider using bank transfer to help us minimise the payment fees. 

Our online card donations are securely processed by either Square or SumUp. Both Square and SumUp are leading providers of online payment services and they take care of securing all transactions in line with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard for us. When you donate through them, we do not get access to any of your card details as you enter these directly into their site after we have redirected you to them to complete the payment. 

Square and SumUp both accept all major credit/debit cards including Visa, Mastercard and American Express, and you can use Apple Pay or Google Pay if you are using a device that supports it. 

(In some cases, we might pay a higher fee to process AmEx, so Visa and Mastercard are preferred).

No. JustGiving, Crowdfunder and similar websites are run as commercial businesses and tend to operate in one of two ways - either they charge the charity high fees, or they cheekily ask donors for an extortionate "tip" (sometimes around 20% of the donation!) from which they make their profits (JustGiving reported profits of over £29 million in 2023). In either case this means less of what the donor pays ends up going to the charity.

In order to keep our costs down, we built our own straightforward donation website (one of our trustees is a software engineer!) and we partner with Square and SumUp to process the payments. Square and SumUp do charge us a fee to process card payments, which is relatively low, though if you want to avoid this entirely, you can donate to us by bank transfer instead.

If you would like to fundraise for us and have your own sponsorship page similar to JustGiving, we may be able to set this up - please email support@goitstock.org.uk and we can look into this for you.