CONSERVATION NEWS

The Kentish Stour Countryside Project has been successful in attracting £58,000 of funding from Wildspace! - New Opportunities Fund - to spend on four proposed Local Nature Reserves. £43,000 of the money will go towards employing someone over three years to work on the Ashford Green Corridors. Robert Brett and Sons have also agreed to contribute £10,680 to the Ashford Green Corridors and the KSCP is awaiting news from the Rail Link Countryside Initiative as the third major sponsor.

Robert Brett and Sons through the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme have agreed to fund £26,700 towards woodland conservation and access projects in the Stour Valley. Most of the money will be spent on Forestry Commission sites - Clowes Wood, Covert Wood and King’s Wood. English Nature is also a partner in the project.

School children were busy planting trees during National Tree Week at this new site under the guidance of BTCV and Ashford borough Council. Thousands of native trees will eventually produce a broadleaf forest the size of 50 football pitches!

No Man’s Orchard produced its own Bramley apple juice for the first time this year helped by 15 volunteer pickers. A day was spent in the orchard at Chartham Hatch picking apples and making bird boxes. The apples were juiced and then sold on Apple Day to provide £150 of income to go towards management of the orchard. Thanks to all concerned.

From 2002, DEFRA is planning to incorporate a number of new arable options into the main Countryside Stewardship Scheme. These will include: payments for retaining overwintered stubble, followed by either spring cereal crops or a spring/summer fallow; introduction of conservation headlands; sowing wild bird seed mixes. After successful pilot schemes, it is hoped the new options will help reverse long term decline in farmland bird populations.

The KSCP Free Tree Scheme 2001 met with a great response from across the Project Area. Over 50 applications for trees were received and nearly 1000 standard trees distributed through the scheme which aims to reintroduce large standard trees into the countryside in areas identified by Local Landscape Strategies.

It is hoped the free trees will go on to become mature standards like this one

Funding is still available until April through the KSCP Countryside Grants Scheme for wildlife hedges, ponds and/or meadows, especially within the area of the Kent Downs AONB.

KSCP volunteers have been busy laying a long length of hedge at Grandacre Farm, Waltham. This traditional form of hedge management has rejuvenated the section of ancient hedgerow. The work is part of a Countryside Stewardship Scheme. Meanwhile the Canterbury Conservation Volunteers have been busy laying a 50m section of old hawthorn hedge on the outskirts of Canterbury. To see this example of traditional hedgerow management, take a walk along the public footpath at Neal’s Place, near the water tower by Kent College.

Habitat improvement works continue at the Quest International site in Ashford. Staff helped to plant trees and scrub on the site and install a kingfisher nesting box into the bank of the river. The project has been a joint partnership between Quest, Environment Agency and the KSCP.

Helpers at Quest (picture courtesy Kent Messenger Group)

Congratulations to Doug Wanstall from Bank Farm, Aldington, who scooped first prize in the Environmental Business awards for Kent, Wildlife Conservation section. Second prize went to Quest International for their conservation habitat improvements. It was a double celebration for KSCP as we have been working closely with both the winners!

King’s Wood, Challock has seen the erection of 50 new dormouse boxes. The wood will be part of the national monitoring scheme for dormice. The Friends of King’s Wood kindly paid for the boxes and will be part of the team, along with Forest Enterprise and KSCP, who will monitor the boxes.

KSCP volunteers and Forest Enterprise have been involved in the removal of scrub and coppice from an ancient Neolithic Burial Mound in Denge Wood, Crundale. The work has helped to create a woodland glade and preserve this most ancient of field monuments.

Back in September, conservation volunteers from KSCP joined forces with local people in Littlebourne to help with 0.5 ha of grass cutting, fruit picking and stream clearance in the village’s community orchard. The orchard is a site that the parish has acquired over the last year. It’s a small area hidden away in the centre of the village providing a quiet refuge and resting place for a diverse range of wildlife.

Apple picking at Turner's Orchard

Following the success of fencing and grazing of a wildflower pasture in Covet Lane, more landowners in the parish are coming forward seeking similar help. Most recently KSCP cleared scrub and mended fences on a small, unimproved pasture at Covet Wood Cottage, which will be grazed over winter by impressive Hungarian screw horn sheep from the Wildwood Centre.

Kentish Stour Countryside Project
Sidelands Farm, Wye, Ashford, Kent TN25 5DQ
01233 813307
kentishstour@kent.gov.uk