Volunteers having a field day helping £4.1m wildlife scheme grow

Extensive work has already been completed by Staffordshire Wildlife Trust on the scheme enhancing grasslands and sites alongside the River Sow including creating new pools and creating wildflower meadows.

But the next phase can't be carried out with the usual heavy plant, it needs manual labour - which is why volunteers from National Highways stepped in to help.

Caption: Volunteer David Wilkinson spreading wildflower seeds by hand at a site off Fairway in the town centre

The Stafford Brooks scheme is funded by National Highways, through its Designated Funds programme, and working in partnership with Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, Stafford Borough Council and the Environment Agency.

Conservation work is taking place on eight key sites in the borough with grassland being turned into wildflower meadows, improvements being made to the urban floodplains and river reprofiling. The reprofiling has involved heavy machinery moving the earth and creating shallow banks along the river to encourage a slower flow and better habitat, as well as creating 21 new wetland ponds.

The sites where work is taking place are Kingsmead Marsh, Kingston Pool Covert (South), Rising Brook, Radford Meadows, Queensville, Riverside, Littleworth Former Tennis Courts and Corporation Street Former Bowling Green.

The next phase of conservation involves improving grassland at the smaller sites such as Riverside, the former tennis courts and old bowling green. Being smaller, and in close proximity to homes, they require a different approach with small equipment, hand tools and teams of people to help spread the seed.

Yesterday (Wed) around a dozen volunteers joined the regular conservationists in spreading sacks of locally sourced lowland wildflower seed onto prepared areas, ready to bloom into the colourful meadows for the future.

Caption: It's off to work we go! Some of the volunteers set off with their buckets of seeds

National Highways Regional Sponsor, Paul Unwin, who took part in the volunteering day, said:

"We are delighted with the progress that is being made and the conservation work that has already taken place. But when we heard about the need for some more manpower we had a rush of volunteers, happy to give up their time to help.

"It was a pleasure to be involved in sowing the seeds for a stunning landscape that will offer a fantastic habitat for wildlife as well as being a beauty spot that local people can enjoy for years to come.

"We know the environment can sometimes be impacted by previous roadbuilding and we are committed to giving back to the communities that live near our roads and making a real difference to the environment."

David Cadman, Head of Nature Recovery Networks for Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, said:

"We're thrilled to have National Highways join us today to see first-hand what their funding has allowed us to achieve and take part in practical conservation.

"The lowland wildflowers we plant today are found in floodplains and will boost the biodiversity of this local nature reserve. It is one piece of the puzzle with other sites in the project, creating healthier habitat for wildlife across the wider Nature Recovery Network in Stafford."

Caption: The River Sow runs through the site off Fairway where work yesterday took place

Vicki Liu, Catchment Coordinator at the Environment Agency said:

"The Stafford Brooks project is an exciting nature recovery project that is providing higher quality, more diverse and better-connected habitats along the watercourses across Stafford.

The project will help local rivers and the wildlife that use them by improving the connections both along river corridors and between the rivers and their floodplains. In suitable places the rivers will be encouraged to make more use of their floodplains, helping to create diverse floodplain habitats, which can have knock-on improvements for biodiversity, water management and local water quality."

More information about the Stafford Brooks project is available on Staffordshire Wildlife Trust's website here:
https://www.staffs-wildlife.org.uk/stafford-brooks

Notes to Editors

Three main types of works being carried out are:

• Grassland improvement works - basic grassland will ultimately be turned into lowland meadow which has a much greater variety of plants that will attract pollinating insects, like bees, butterflies and moths.

• Wetland enhancement works - new ponds installed this summer will improve habitat in urban floodplain sites, encouraging a greater variety of wetland plants to grow around the ponds, and make better homes for dragonflies and wading birds. It will help keep water in more focused areas after flooding does occur. By improving floodplain habitat, we develop the natural water storage function that a floodplain can provide and support the Environment Agency in a catchment-based approach to water management.

• River re-profiling - this work used big machinery to move earth and create shallow banks along the River Sow. This conservation work will encourage a slower flow of water in near the bank, making more habitat for breeding and young fish, wading birds and other river way wildlife.

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.