[Madhatter]

As an outsider with no previous knowledge other than in the last two years.
Get rid of the trees, plant native species.
Get rid of the horrible brick shelter, or replace it with a brick shelter that has decorative brick ends, perhaps with a oak tree design carved into them.
the monument needs restoring and making the centre piece of a bigger monument which should have been done as part of the panoptican project. When permission was refused, the artist brief should have been changed.
Put the monument at the centre, have radial paths coming out with blue led lines in, each leading to a bench or a standing stone. You wouldn't need big stones, you could use squares as big as the centre stone of the existing monument. Get local people to carve designs that say what Accrington or the coppice is all about to them, you'd hold local stone carving sessions to do that. Micheal Disley does stone carving workshops.You could do the benches like that too, bigger oblongs carved on all four sides. Do some carvings past, some present. All lit up by white led up lighters. Your only limit is your budget. I don't think you're likely to get the sort of figure required to do that sort of project now, which is a shame because people clearly want something.
End of the day it's YOUR coppice n what i can't understand is why when the panoptican project was rejected was you not asked what YOU want and more suggestions and design briefs put out based on what was suggested.