A BID has been made to buy an outdoor education centre at Mitcheldean for the community.

The Wilderness Centre was sold by Gloucestershire County Council in 2014 but has come back up for sale.

Wylderne Bioregioning, a Community Benefit Society based in the Forest has announced it had secured significant funding and has made a bid to buy the centre from its current owner, Dr. Daniel Sturdy.

The community benefit society was formed in October 2023 after the centre was put up for sale with an asking price of £1.5 million.

Wylderne Bioregioning has put in a bid for the market value of the site, last assessed in February 2023.

The aim is to secure the property for the community by the summer.

“We are grateful to our financial backers and to the Forest of Dean District Council both of whom believe in our vision for the Wilderness,” said Simon Dawson, one of four directors of Wylderne Bioregioning.

“This iconic place which has provided so many children across the Forest and Gloucestershire with their first formative nights away from home for over five decades, we hope will now forever be secure in community hands.”

Wylderne Bioregioning’s plan is to get the deal over the line by July with the help of a Community Share Offer. The target is to raise the final £150,000.

In advance of the formal share offer, Wylderne Bioregioning have put out a call for pledges on their website.

Any money that people pledge before July will be converted to interest-bearing shares as soon as the share offer closes.

Details of the share offer can be found at: www.wylderne.com

The vision for the centre is to become an environmental education centre for the whole community, to learn more about the unique biodiversity of the Forest.

Wylderne Bioregioning says it will enable people to learn the skills that are called for by the green economy and to put the Forest’s potential on the map.

The directors of the community benefit society – a not-for-profit business – are Paul Pivcevic, Nicki Williams, Jamie Robinson and Simon Dawson.

Mr Pivcevic and Ms Williams have extensive backgrounds in business and people development.

Mr Robinson and Mr Dawson are both former soldiers with wide experience of working in and running outdoor education centres.

The group describe bioregioning as “a process of learning, even re-learning how to live in a particular landscape, a place from which we might draw a sense of belonging, a place however temporarily, we might call home.

“The Forest of Dean is just such a place.”

The main building at The Wilderness stands in 30 acres of land and was built as a family home early in the 19th century.

It was acquired by Gloucestershire County Council in the 1960s and for five decades, schoolchildren from across the county learnt about nature there on residential stays.