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Society update

Chairman

At the AGM in May Jacinta White stepped down as Chairman of the trustee committee and did not put herself forward for re-election to the committee. She still intends to be actively involved with the Society by joining our work mornings and providing refreshments for our Sullington Warren mornings and speakers’ evenings.

We do not currently have a replacement chairman.

Trustees

We have a new trustee. Chris Barrow has been a frequent volunteer at our Sandgate Park work mornings since moving to the area. Apart from Jacinta stepping down from the trustee committee all other trustees were re-elected.

Honorary President

Don Filliston’s death earlier this year left the Society without an Honorary President. Whilst the Society does not need to have an Honorary President the role provides the Society with a figure head. The trustee committee invited Bill Cutting to take on the role of Honorary President of the Society. We feel that Bill’s long association with the Society, including one time editor of the newsletter with his wife Lesley, and his role dealing with local planning concerns, means that he represents a continuation of the aims and values of the Society and make Bill an ideal person for the role. We are very pleased that Bill accepted our invitation.

How to help hedgehogs

With the weather finally warming up hedgehogs are now out and about. You will probably know that the British hedgehog population has suffered a disastrous crash. It is estimated that there were 36 million hedgehogs in the 1950s and less than 1 million now. 10 million have been lost since 2003. What is the cause of this?

Reasons for population decline

Some people will have you believe that it is because of badgers. While badgers will eat hedgehogs when hungry research shows that in the past the level of badger predation on hedgehogs has been low because there were plenty of places hedgehogs could avoid badgers. Sadly, the loss of hedgerows and cover due to intensive farming means that cover for hedgehogs has declined.

Badgers also prefer to eat earthworms but as intensive farming degrades the condition of soil the numbers of earthworms available for badgers, and hedgehogs, to eat decreases, resulting in hungry hedgehogs that starve and hungry badgers who will be happy to eat a hedgehog.

How you can help

Help hedgehogs to get around by giving them a safe route to travel between gardens. Gaps in fences and under gates allow hedgehogs to move between gardens. Routes that avoid roads protect the hedgehog from one of its major hazards – road traffic. Adding a 10cm hole at ground level is all you need – speak to your neighbours to see if they would also be willing to do the same. Even better, consider replacing fences with hedging – a native hedge is cheap to grow and will also support a lot of other wildlife. Also look for any hedgehog obstacles, such as steps, and provide little ramps for the hedgehogs.

Stop using slug pellets. They poison hedgehogs and other wildlife – much of which would help you control slugs and snails. There are many other methods to control slugs and snails such as beer traps, empty grapefruit halves, egg shells, that do result in poisoned wildlife.

Reduce the hazards to hedgehogs in your garden. Always check bonfires for hedgehogs before you light them. Take extreme care when using strimmers – these result in the serious injury and death of many hedgehogs. Also, if you are mowing long grass, check first for hedgehogs. If you have a garden pond make sure it has a hedgehog escape route in the event a hedgehog falls into it.

To compensate for the loss of natural habitat provide hedgehog shelter in your garden. A wild corner sheltered from the wind and too much sun will do. Leave the grass to grow long and the weeds to become wild flowers. Provide a pile of twigs, dead wood or a log pile. You can even make or buy a weatherproof hedgehog shelter.

Hedgehogs need to put on weight in the summer and autumn so they do not starve when they go into hibernation. To help them out why not feed them. Do not give them milk or bread as these will make them sick. Safe food includes: any meat based cat / dog wet food (not fish based ones); hedgehog food / biscuits; kitten biscuits (chicken); sunflower seeds; nuts (not salted); suet pellets with insects. You can occasionally give them mealworms but while hedgehogs enjoy mealworms they are a poor source of nutrition for them. Don’t forget to provide fresh water. You may need to build a hedgehog feeding station to exclude foxes and cats from your hedgehog feast.

Finally, if you see a hedgehog in the road when you are driving try to avoid it. If you saw a hedgehog sized rock in the road you would drive around it if you could. If you can, stop and move the hedgehog off the road (only if you can do so without putting yourself or others in harms way). You may sometimes find a hedgehog on the side of the road unable to climb the kerb- give it some help to get off the road

Don Filliston

It is great sadness that we have to let you know that Don Filliston MBE, our Honorary President, died peacefully in his sleep at his home last weekend. He was being taken care of by his two daughters and nurses from St Barnabas House Hospice.

We will inform members by email of the funeral arrangements. If you are a member but are not receiving emails from us it is because we do not have an email address for you. If this is the case and you wish to be told of the funeral arrangements then please contact us.

Update on Longbury Hill Wood

Background

Longbury Hill Wood is a 10 hectare woodland bounded by Rock Road to the north and Hampers Lane to the west. A planning application, DC/17/2117, was submitted for an access road to be built from Rock Road to facilitate forestry felling. This application, in addition to the proposed felling, resulted in considerable local opposition. The site is included in the Local Green Spaces report of the Local Neighbourhood Plan (currently draft) as it is, unofficially, used as a local green space for dog walking by local residents.

The proposed felling, under Forestry Commission licence FLA 019/180/17-18, includes the clear felling of a large area of mature Scots pine, some coppicing of broadleaf trees and some rhododendron clearing. The access road and associated hard-standing and turning area is required to allow access for log removal, the existing access from Hampers Lane being deemed unsuitable.

Sandgate Conservation Society’s position

The Society’s interest in the planning application and felling licence arose from its location between Warren Hill and Sandgate Park and the value of the site as a wildlife corridor between them, as well as as a wildlife habitat in its own right, particularly arising from the low level of human activity on the Longbury Hill Wood site.

The Society is not opposed to appropriate woodland management, the felling of dense stands of commercially planted Scots pine, coppicing and rhododenron clearing could be highly beneficial in improving the natural habitat, but the concern was around the scale and speed of the process and methods that would be used, and whether these would be harmful to any protected species on the site. Whilst the Society recognised the rights of the owner of the wood to carry out felling under licence, the lack of clarity over the conditions placed on the owner in terms of avoidance of harm to protected species, and restocking and management after tree felling raised a number of questions.

The Society was also concerned that the Anglo-Saxon boundary bank that runs along parts of the western and northern boundaries of the wood should not be damaged by the access road.

Local residents voiced other concerns relating to loss of a local amenity, general loss of trees, increased traffic, additional road hazards etc. The Society did not feel that was within its remit to raise objections to the planning application in relation to these issues but largely agreed with and echoed the concerns raised by Washington Parish Council.

Actions taken by Sandgate Conservation Society

The Society commented on the planning application (DC/17/2117) and raised issues on the report to the planning committees for 21st November 2017 and 19 December 2017. It also researched the Anglo-Saxon boundary bank and provided details to local county councillors for their information and corresponded with the Forestry Commission.

Conclusion

A felling licence has been granted for felling on Longbury Hill Wood though the scope has been slightly reduced – the coppice area has been reduced to 0.16 ha from 1.3 ha originally applied for, and a screen is to be retained along the north and south boundaries. The Forestry Commission provided a map of the forestry work and a response to issues raised with them. Washington Parish Council have responded to the Forestry Commision (see here) so the Society does not consider that there is a need for it to also respond.

The planning application for the access road has also been granted and the decision notice can be read here. A condition of note is that the access road and hard standing must be removed within 1 year of first use of the forestry access.

The Society believes that, on balance, a satisfactory result has been arrived at for all parties.

Update to On-line Archive

An update has been made to the On-line Archive page.

The Newsletter section has been updated with a new contents list covering all editions of the newsletters.

In addition the contents list from edition 28 of the newsletter has been extracted and also provided as a separate document. This covers editions 1 – 28.

The On-line Archive page has also been reorganised.

We are always happy to receive information and photographs relating to the Sandgate area, especially those dealing with the history and natural history of the area.

Sullington Warren work morning 13/01/2018

We had a very good turnout of volunteers this morning, including a number of children. The 09:30 start and the grey morning didn’t seem to deter people (New Year resolutions?) which was excellent as we managed to get a lot of work done. Volunteers were, as usual, treated to excellent refreshments provided by Jacinta at break time, and we had the additional treat of a bonfire and being able to watch the NT move large logs using their tractor.

The National Trust are continuing the slow process of removing a few of the Scots Pines every year in order to expand and link up the areas of heathland on the Warren, in line with the plan to improve the status of the site as a SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest). The NT ranger explained that the objective, over the long term, was to have larger areas of wet and dry heathland dotted with trees, including oak and rowan which are highly beneficial to locally occurring wildlife as well as the occasional mature Scots pine, whilst leaving clumps of trees and shrubs to provide an additional habitat and shelter for wildlife and to break up the view across the site.

Tree felling on the Warren and other lowland heathland sites is sometimes disapproved of by some people in the mistaken belief that it is wrong to cut down any tree. The argument is often made that heathlands are a man-made feature and before the intervention of humans Britain would have been extensively covered by trees, so dense tree cover is the natural state. This is a misunderstanding. Whilst it is true that the clearing of primeval woodland for fuel and livestock grazing led to the creation of extensive areas of lowland heathland in Britain, even before that process began there would have been glades and clearings created by fallen trees, fires and the activities of herbivores (some very large herbivores once roamed Britain), and these heathlands would have been maintained by the grazing of herbivores. The existence of species that thrive on lowland heathland is evidence that lowland heathland is a natural habitat in Britain. (Conversely, upland heathlands are often intensively managed to the extent that they are over grazed and burnt so that areas of scrub and woodland that would naturally occur and provide a richer wildlife habitat that supports a wider range of native species, such as the endangered black grouse and capercaillie, are prevented from growing).

With the loss of so much heathland to agriculture and forestry, fragmentation by roads, development and mineral extraction, and degradation due to the growth of invasive scrub and bracken, coupled with the pressure on the remaining sites due to human activities, it is important that the remaining areas of lowland heathland are maintained and improved in order to prevent the loss of native species of plants and animals. Cutting down some mature trees helps to restore the heathland to its natural state, and the periodic removal of saplings and shrubs mimics the natural processes that would have prevented the heathlands becoming overgrown by trees.

On many managed heathland sites cattle or horses are used to manage the vegetation growth. Due to the characteristics of the Warren it is not possible to use livestock so humans have to do the job instead. In the area where the large pines have been felled we removed unwanted saplings,small trees and shrubs such as birches and brambles and the children did a great job of hauling branches and small trees to the bonfire to be burnt.

While working on the wet heathland area we stumbled on this attractive fungus

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