Pictured (left to right) are Tm Curley (Avon Wildlife Trust head of nature’s recovery), Stuart Gardner (West of England Nature Partnership manager), Dan Norris (West of England Metro Mayor) and Simon Hunter (Bristol Avon Rivers Trust CEO).
A wildlife ‘superhighway’ for birds, bees and other animals – connecting habitats between the Cotswolds and the Mendip Hills – has been given the thumbs up by Metro Mayor, Dan Norris.
He met up with West of England Nature Partnership’s Ian Barrett who explained how both the limestone peaks of the Mendip Hills in the east and the Cotswolds Scarp surrounding Bath in the west, have international designation status, but the landscape in between is not as nature-friendly.
However, the multi-million-pound ‘Limestone Link’ project, led by the West of England Nature Partnership, aims to change all that. Along the 36-mile route passing by Radstock, Midsomer Norton and Peasedown St John, habitats will be restored and rivers cleaned up so West of England birds, insects and fish can travel seamlessly between these two protected areas
The ambitious plan includes planting more than 200 hectares of woodland to support squirrels, lesser-spotted woodpeckers and horseshoe bats, as well as lichens, mosses and insects, and over 100 hectares of wildflower-rich habitats to support bees.
Metro Mayor Dan Norris said: “There is a climate and biodiversity emergency that requires leadership and action. Thankfully, we in the West of England are getting on with the job of fighting the climate crisis and supporting nature’s recovery. This is a really exciting project to make the area between the Mendip Hills and Cotswolds the beating heart of nature recovery in the region, expanding wildlife corridors and the outdoor spaces that people can use to walk their dogs, ramble, picnic and cycle throughout our great region, with all of the health benefits this brings”.
West of England Nature Partnership Chair Ian Barrett said: “The Limestone Link is an excellent demonstration of landscape-scale ambition to recover nature and of the partnership working that is needed to address the ecological emergency. We need big, connected areas of habitat to enable wildlife to thrive and adapt to climate change; creating a nature-rich landscape between the Mendip Hills and Cotswolds is exactly the type of visionary project needed to achieve this”.
A great idea which I hope will succeed. However, I query the wisdom of including grey squirrels given the ambition to plant 200 hectares of new trees – squirrels do huge damage to juvenile trees by ring-barking them. It’s very sad to see an otherwise healthy tree destroyed in this way. Pine martens are needed to control grey squirrels.