Arun and Rother Connections July 2016 Issue 6 In this Issue Waste Water for Wildlife Waste Water for Wildlife Fighting foreign flora Our valiant volunteers! ARC at the Charity Awards Scrubbing Down Restoring our heavenly heathlands Wading into Warnham Young people from Littlehampton Academy planting the rain garden. Riverfly Tree Planting Littlehampton is leading the way in urban water management by building a wildlife-friendly rain garden in the centre of the Get Involved seaside town. Bigger, better and more Rain gardens are an exciting concept in landscape and garden design. They are small-scale features that capture rainwater runoff from buildings, joined up: helping habitats pavements and other hard surfaces, and which then temporarily store, clean across the Arun & Western and slowly release that water back into the soil or drainage system, thereby Streams helping our gardens and towns to deal more effectively with heavy rainfall. Stop press: £5K more for Rain gardens were first developed in the United States in the 1990s, where they have become increasingly popular. In the UK, the mimicking of natural community grants! drainage in urban areas is officially encouraged and known as Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS). Arun & Rother Explorer resource pack launched! The ARC project worked with Littlehampton Civic Society to develop the project. The Society managed to secure additional funding from Operation Watershed for this project which has transformed two bare grass verges into Pondemonium! gardens planted with ferns, English Ivy, Dogweed, Snowball Trees and other small flowering plants. As well as helping to store some of the water that Get mobile to win ‘app’ealing gathers on the adjacent Maltavers Road, the gardens will provide a haven for prizes! insects, bugs and birds. Littlehampton Civic Society was formed in 1972 in order to protect West Wrapping up ARC (key Beach from development. It is a registered charity and continues to play an dates for your diary) important role in gathering local people’s views on how the town is developed. They are now looking for their next rain garden project! Read more about their work here: http://littlehamptoncivicsociety.org.uk/ Fighting foreign flora Working with our partners, long- term plans for control are being However, it is highly invasive and New team member developed for all three sites. harmful to humans. The sap contains toxic chemicals and Jennifer Pollitt joined the Control measures include the when they come into contact with physical removal of the plant and ARC team at the end of the skin, and in the presence of preventative measures such as March and is leading our sunlight, they cause a reddening installing mesh sieves to catch of the skin, severe burns and invasive non-native species plant fragments in outflow pipes blistering. The burns can last for eradication programme. from infested areas. several months and even once Jenni has been flat out working they have died down the skin can with partner organisations and remain sensitive to light for many Parrot’s Feather local communities to deliver our years. final season of work and helping Parrot’s feather has We have been re-treating this to build a strong project legacy. thankfully remained an noxious invader throughout June, on the Upper Arun, new locations elusive weed within the Beating the on the North River and in catchment. Climping. Balsam If you know the location of any Please do not touch giant infestations of Parrot’s feather – Thanks to a massive hogweed. If you think you have we want to hear from you! Please volunteer effort in 2015 giant hogweed on your land or contact where six hectares of the you know someone who does or [email protected]. require advice, please contact: invasive plant were cleared, [email protected]. we have almost eradicated After ARC Himalayan balsam from Monkmead Woods in West Having invested significant Chiltington. time and resources into controlling these invasive Beautiful red campion and other species, the ARC project is native wild flowers have begun to keen to ensure a strong flourish. We visited the site in legacy in this area once the early June expecting to find the project ends later this year. new season’s balsam growth starting to show, but there is very little coming up at all. Both the South Downs National Park and the Arun & Western Once we have removed the final Streams Catchment have few remaining balsam plants from strategies in place which identify Monkmead Woods, we will then the priorities for ongoing control of focus our attention on three other priority invasive species in the sites for the final season: Hurston region. Fran Southgate standing next to Lane (Storrington), Warnham treated Giant Hogweed. Local Nature Reserve (Horsham), The ARC project has also been and Wickford Bridge (Pulborough). training local champions and landowners to continue tackling If you would like to join us and Floating some of these species after the help beat the balsam, contact project has ended. [email protected]. Pennywort A meeting was held in July where Floating pennywort, a strong a number of organisations met to Giant Hogweed contender for the worst discuss and agree future priorities aquatic weed, due to its and projects. Growing to a lofty 20 feet ability to over-run water and with leaves the size of Further updates will be provided bodies and threaten towards the end of the project. If dinner plates giant hogweed habitats, native plants, fish you have any questions in the was introduced into the UK and insects, has been meantime, do not hesitate to get by the Victorians as an identified in three locations in touch with Jenni. ornamental plant for within the ARC Project area. lakesides and gardens. Our valiant ARC at the Charity Awards volunteers ! ARC volunteers have assisted on a variety of different tasks throughout the project but the one thing that has not changed has been their enthusiasm. At the last count 976 volunteers had collectively contributed 1547 days of their time to the project, truly transforming the catchment for people and for wildlife. Fran Southgate (SWT), Mike Clarke (RSPB Chief Executive) and Rachel Carless (RSPB) We are now in the final stage of the project so it would be ARC was highly commended at the Charity Awards, the wonderful to get as many people longest-running awards scheme in the charity sector, after involved as possible, particularly being nominated for the Environment and Conservation with our invasive species removal award. First place in the category went to Keep Britain Tidy, programme during the summer. for their innovative ‘We’re Watching You’ poster campaign. It’s a fun day in the great The ten category winners were announced at a glamorous ceremony outdoors, meeting inspiring people th and eating cake. What’s not to and dinner at the Mermaid Theatre in London’s Blackfriars on 9 June like?! The black-tie evening was hosted by former BBC Breakfast presenter, Bill Turnbull, and ARC was represented by Mike Clarke, Chief This massive volunteer effort also Executive of the RSPB, Fran Southgate of the Sussex Wildlife Trust brings valuable match funding to and Rachel Carless, ARC project manager. the project – over £100K to date, allowing us to draw down more Tania Mason, editorial director at Civil Society Media, which organises funds for project delivery. Read on the Charity Awards, said: “We had a record number of entries this year, to hear what our volunteers have and the standard was particularly high, so the ARC Project partners been up to. should be very proud to have made the shortlist”. All 30 charities shortlisted were judged by an independent panel of sector leaders as having demonstrated exemplary best practice. Chris Corrigan, Regional Director for the Southeast said: “The RSPB is delighted that the ARC project was highly commended for such a prestigious award. Seeing the benefits the project has had to the local community and to native wildlife in the area has already been a huge reward to our staff, partners and volunteers. This commendation provides us with a great opportunity to share this knowledge and inspire others to improve the wild spaces around them, for generations to come.” Justo impetus qui eu, has ea tale duis zzril, an zzril pericula definitiones eam. No stet suscipit Graffham Down Trust and ARC volunteers created clearings for wildflowers and butterflies. vis, vix ex oportere tincidunt Justo impetus qui eu, has ea tale Graffham Down has a range of volunteersduis zzril, an wasted zzril pericula no time in Scrubbing Down habitats that include herb rich gettingdefinitiones to work. eam. The No branches stet suscipit grassland, scrub and woodland, werevis, vix burned ex oportere and the tincidunt rest of the In February, ARC partnered providing a home to notable timberefficiendi, stacked magna. After ignota a great te mel. day’s up with the Graffham Down butterfly and dormice populations. effort,Eam eu a largemolestiae area rationibushad been Trust to remove trees and clearedhonestatis. (with Pro thanks in delenit to everyone’s The aim was to allow more light dedicationtemporibus, and nec determination prompta scrub on Graffham Down. onto the reserve and encourage boosteddefinitiones by Diane’seu. Ne zzrildelicious oblique more species of wildflowers and orangenonummy and has, chocolate mutat legendosflapjack!). ea Designated as a Site of Nature butterflies. The trees had been sed. Idque timeam ea mel. Conservation Interest (SNCI), felled beforehand so the Lorem ipsum erant ornatus sea ei. Illud liberavisse eum Restoring our heavenly heathlands Also in February, the South Downs National Park and Sussex Amphibian and Reptile Group (SxARG) along with some hearty ARC volunteers carried out conservation work at Heyshott Common, a beautiful SSSI heathland near Midhurst.