On Monday 3rd November a team from Penta Consulting spent time with the Surrey Wildlife Trust, lending their time to support the restoration work taking place at Priest Hill.
Priest Hill is a nature reserve in Epsom (Surrey, UK) that was formerly playing fields. At the point of taking over the site, nature had reclaimed the then abandoned land, with large areas of rough grassland, scrub and hedgerows having developed. Whilst these habitats supported many species without management, the site’s diversity was declining over time.
As part of the restoration work, over 1,500 tons of tarmac and rubble have been removed. Bare ground and chalk have been exposed to provide habitat for invertebrates, who in turn support many bird species. Conservation grazing, the introduction of wildflowers and the construction of three ponds to provide wetland habitat have also been important stages in growing biodiversity. The site is now a home to a protected butterfly species, the Small Blue Butterfly.
On our visit, the team spent the morning digging a ‘scrape’ to expose the underlying Thanet sand from beneath the topsoil. Solitary bees and wasps nest in this kind of sandy soil. The removed soil was piled up around the side, with this warm sandy bank providing additional habitat for other insects and other species. Some previously completed scrapes that our team viewed showed signs of rabbits and foxes digging further into the soil.
In the afternoon the team moved over to support scrub clearance efforts. Brambles have overtaken large sections of the site, with only limited support for biodiversity. Whilst large sections have been cleared from the surface with machinery, the painstaking manual removal of root systems to reduce regrowth is reliant on the incredible (and physically demanding!) manual efforts from volunteers.
The day was a fantastic team effort and a demonstration of our commitment to make a meaningful impact in the communities in which we operate.
A big thank you to the Surrey Wildlife Trust both for their informative approach to how they organised the day, but also for the ongoing work they do in supporting our native wildlife and landscapes.
