How do we decide whether to work (or not) in bad weather?

5th October 2025

Let’s face it, if we only worked when the weather was nice, we’d never get anything done. We’ve only cancelled Friends of Oxleas Woodlands and Shooter’s Hill Woodland Working Party sessions a few times, but it does happen - so how do we decide?

One of the first cancellations was a SHWWP session. We’d been intending to work on pulling rhododendron from the upper slopes in Oxleas wood, but the ground was hard frozen. No matter how we tried, we wouldn't have been able to do the task. And while there were other tasks that might have been possible, we decided that the ground was just too difficult underfoot, given our uneven, sloping terrain.

We’ve now cancelled a couple of sessions due to wind. One of these was a litter picking session that coincided with an active storm. The other, just recently, was our first coppicing session, which was scheduled during the tail of Storm Amy. If you were out and about that day, you’ll know it didn't actually feel particularly bad, and it was only gusting at 50mph or so.

So why? 2025 has been a very dry year, and the latter half of 2024 was not a lot better. Every tree in the woodlands is stressed as a result, and stressed trees will shed branches to preserve their core. Amy was the first storm of the season, and the first opportunity this autumn that the trees had really had to shake off any branches they’d decided to sacrifice. On top of that, the trees were all in full leaf, giving the wind a lot more leverage than it might have in a storm later in the year.

This branch fell during storm Amy across a well used path just outside the area we were planning to work in.

It's not big branches falling that are the only problem either. Startle reflexes can be quite dramatic in some people. If you are startled by a falling branch of any size whilst you are on uneven ground, carrying sharp tools, you could do noticeable damage to yourself and the person next to you.

We couldn’t know in advance whether one of the standards in the coupe would drop a major branch in a gust during the session. And we couldn’t survey the whole work area for hanging wood created overnight before the session start time. We decided we’d rather cancel, and live to work another day.