THE Forestry Commission will be investing more than £2m to improve Alice Holt Forest’s amenities over the next 12 months, to mark a new chapter in the history of the site.

Visitors to Alice Holt Forest will soon benefit from a new café, extra seating and additional facilities, as the site undergoes a redevelopment to improve the popular woodland destination.

While work is expected to start in June, the site and existing café will remain open to the public during the redevelopment to ensure visitors can continue to enjoy the forest while work takes place. Families will still be able to enjoy the play equipment and sculpture trails, biking fans can continue to use the cycle paths across the forest – including the only formal off-road cycle trail in 30 miles, which is safe from roads and passing traffic – and Go Ape, the ultimate treetop experience.

The main change will be a new café with bigger indoor and outdoor seating areas, and landscape changes to improve access for all abilities.

According to the Forestry Commission, the new building will be of “the high design and quality standards that visitors expect,” and will be open from this winter.

The new café will be located next to the current visitor centre and will see the seating capacity more than double in size to over 100 seats inside, and 120 outside.

In addition, car park improvements are planned to create more spaces, including purpose built disabled parking. There will also be the introduction of safer pedestrian zones and a turning area, helping to improve access and traffic flow.

Site Manager, Julian Williams, told the Herald: “We want our visitors to have the best possible time while they’re at Alice Holt Forest. Over the years, we’ve become more popular so need to improve the facilities to make sure we deliver much needed extra capacity and help to meet the growing demands on site.

”Work starts on site from June and we hope visitors will continue to enjoy Alice Holt, whilst watching the exciting developments taking place.”

He continued: “We aim to minimise disruption through a number of carefully planned redevelopment phases and have worked hard to make sure we’re also protecting the natural environment and wildlife during the project.”

Adding: “We couldn’t do this work without the support of the community and we hope that new and existing visitors will continue to access Alice Holt Forest.”