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Wildlife volunteers Look to the Future
(June 23, 2020)The Grovelands Countryside and Wildlife Park group volunteer efforts are currently on hold due to restrictions on working during the Covid-19 lockdown.
The group are looking forward to the easing of those instructions so that they can resume their regular work of maintaining the land and paths and keeping the area free from litter and fly-tipping.
“We residents got together during the planning process for a proposed Continuing Care Retirement Community” said Len Turner.
“We heard that the applicant wanted Wiltshire Council to take over the ownership of land not required for the development – but the Council’s initial response was to say no as they had no available resources to meet the financial burden of looking after the area."
After a couple of meetings at county hall arranged by ward Councillor Pip Ridout a compromise was reached, whereby the Council would take ownership of the land and the local community would take responsibility for the ongoing maintenance.
Planning permission was granted, and the land transferred into public ownership in June 2018, following which Len & Cllr Ridout organised a meeting open to all Grovelands estate residents at the Civic Centre.
The meeting agreed to set up The Grovelands Countryside and Wildlife Group, which quickly got down to work within a couple of weeks.
The first task was to remove the tons of litter and fly-tipping that had built up over many years. They then moved on to removing hundreds of metres of redundant fencing, keeping footpaths useable, re-opening others, clearing new routes to get round badly flooded paths during the winter
They have even tackled the de-silting of the southern Were tributary by the weir halfway along the length of their wildlife park.
During all this work they have been photographing and cataloguing the numerous flora and fauna that is native to area including the Water Rail.
“We regularly see barn owls perched on abandoned pig styes, daily sightings of Roe Deer several species of orchid which we have been protecting and are now recovering in numbers, and Scarlet Elf Cup fungus that rare in Britain and on the European Red List, amongst so much more,” explained Len.
“I think this is ‘Herb Robert’," said Len as he records another flower to add to their extensive recordings.
“Sometimes my son-in-law Marc Granville rings up saying he has a couple hours to spare and we get over here. Each organised working party brings together between 12 and 20 volunteers, who put in a quite strenuous two to three hours each time."
Wiltshire Council has ambitious plans for the future of the public rights of way that connect the Grovelands area with Coldharbour Lane.
Some of the paths may be upgraded to provide three-metre wide shared pedestrian cycle routes connecting with the proposed housing in the Warminster West Urban Extension. It will take in the region of £200,000 to achieve, funded through developer planning agreement contributions.
Last year the group gratefully received grants from the Town Council and the Warminster Area Board which has funded the purchase of equipment from litter pickers, spades, shovels, loppers, to a battery powered pole saw, brush cutter and hedge-trimmer.
The Town Council has granted a further £500 this year for more equipment, materials and signage.
“At the moment, quite understandably, Wiltshire Council has suspended all volunteer group work on their land or property during the lockdown” added Len.
“As Government restrictions are further relaxed, we would hope to be back in full swing in September.”