Projects Updates:

04/02/2010 12:12: Life on the Verge

‘Life on the Verge’ is a project started in 2008 and run by the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust in partnership with Natural England, Lincolnshire County Council and the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust.

Its principal aims are:
•    to identify, maintain, restore and re-create lowland calcareous grassland
•    to improve conditions for associated Biodiversity Action Plan species, including Dingy Skipper, Grizzled Skipper, Duke of Burgundy, Four-spotted Moth, Early Gentian and Skylark
•    to increase the resilience of Biodiversity Action Plan and other species to disturbance and climate change through improving the network of well-managed grassland habitat to facilitate dispersal
•    to raise awareness and increase understanding of the value of this habitat to generate long-term support for its conservation

The project area lies across south west Lincolnshire, north-east Rutland and east Leicestershire. It is dominated by a band of limestone with shallow soils that give rise to some of the richest grasslands in the country. These grasslands can contain up to 40 species of plant in a square metre of turf. Only an estimated 100 hectares of this flower-rich grassland remains, where it was once a characteristic feature of the local landscape. What remains is largely confined to roadside verges, nature reserves, quarries and other scattered sites and is the most fragmented in the country. Many sites are at risk of being managed inappropriately or are too small to manage effectively.

Funding from the SITA Trust allocated to the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, on behalf of the project partners, has enabled the purchase of two sets of mini-baling equipment which will facilitate the appropriate management of roadside verges.  The funding will also pay for contractors to cut and clear the verges targeted for management, and to remove scrub from some verges. 

Mark Schofield, Limestone Grassland Project Officer said: "This area was identified in the 1940s as a prime area for conservation and since then the grasslands and their important species have become increasingly scarce.  With this boost from the SITA Trust funding we will be able to manage limestone grassland verges in a way that will help the wild plants and animals associated with this habitat survive.  Road verges represent a vital opportunity to link the few remaining patches of limestone grassland across the landscape.  A well cared for network of verges will act as green corridors that help plants and animals move as they need to in the face of climate change and disturbance."

Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust is and mobilizing volunteer surveyors to discover vital corridors of limestone grassland throughout the project area along its roadside verges. In 2009 lifeontheverge.org.uk was launched to co-ordinate the survey work. 73 volunteers discovered 66 km (15 ha) / 41 miles (37 acres) which could become Local Wildlife Sites and Roadside Nature Reserves.  We have already been able to act on this information and have targeted specific stretches of connecting road for scrub clearance this winter.  We are also now in a position where we can begin to prioritise and target survey work next season.

The most exciting aspect of the survey data collated so far, has been the discovery of two very promising north-south ‘climate corridors’ each over 10km in length.  These are contiguous stretches of road with a consistently high number of wild flower species characteristic of limestone grassland growing along them.  New sites have also been found for Man Orchid, Southern Marsh Orchid, Clustered Bellflower and Squinancywort.

Wild flower identification training days are being run for the public each summer and a wild flower meadow has been created on Pickworth Village Green as part of a local parish project.

Next steps are to begin evaluating and designating new roadside Local Wildlife Sites and to liaise with local highways authorities and local landowners to ensure their sympathetic management.