North East Community Forests Land Services Darlington Annual Report 2005-2006 North East Community Forests Land Services Darlington Annual Report 2005-2006 Introduction Darlington Borough Council delivers its practical countryside management on its nature reserves in partnership with the North East Community Forests Land Services. This practical conservation management takes a variety of forms and includes such things as wildflower meadow management, scrub management, work associated with pond management and work to improve access around the nature reserves. The service also provides some management work on the Public Right of Way system, including constructing steps to improve access, repairing stiles, re-siting Waymarker posts and drainage work to improve footpath surfaces. The year saw the number of Local Nature Reserves grow from the original four; The Whinnies, Brankin Moor, Brinkburn Pond and Drinkfield Marsh, to seven with the inclusion of Geneva Wood, Maidendale and Rockwell. NECF Land Services also successfully tendered for the provision of maintenance and conservation management of the new reserve at West Park. This meant that there was a larger amount of work to be done by the service, which was a challenge for all concerned. The Darlington Land Services Manager works in close consultation with Darlington Borough Council staff to establish the work programme for the work team. In this way the work associated with Public Rights of Way is given to the Land Services Manager by the PROW staff of Darlington Borough Council and both parties work in consultation to decide on the most effective habitat management for the nature reserves and to establish priorities and target completion dates. Delivery of the work programme The work team goes out four days a week, usually Monday to Thursday inclusive and currently it is attracting between 5 and 12 people daily. The total number of person days work delivered during the second year of the contract has been 1415; see attached spreadsheet for more details. These days have been divided between the seven nature reserves, public rights of way, the Black Poplar Project and West Park. Added value The recruitment of a Supervisor to join the Land Services Manager has continued to allow the project to expand extensively and provide a great of annual report 2005-6 text only 2 added value to the service. A large number of diverse groups have been involved in delivering the service during the year. The partnership begun in 2003-4 with the two main training agencies in Darlington, A4e and PPD to offer New Deal work placement opportunities continued for most of the year. However unfortunately A4e lost their contract with the local Job Centre to provide training for the New Deal contract in November and this had an impact on the number of people in the work team. The partnership with PPD continues to develop and this offers opportunities for unemployed people in Darlington to receive training in conservation work and has proved so successful that several people placed with us have continued to attend on a voluntary basis when their New Deal placements were completed. This was beneficial to all parties since it gave the volunteers the opportunity to continue with their volunteering and also provided a pool of experienced and dedicated workers. The service has been able to develop further this year, building on the experience of the Land Services Supervisor who has worked in Darlington for a number of years, previously with BTCV. The project that he developed with the Pierremont Unit of Darlington Memorial Hospital has proved a great success and some of the outpatients felt so comfortable with the work atmosphere provided that they started to attend for additional hours. Several of them attended for a full day, instead of two hours and some were even attending five days a week. The service has also begun a partnership with Community Payback in Darlington. This scheme is run by the Probation service and people who are given community service orders by the local courts have to work a certain number of unpaid hours and provide a benefit to the local community with their work. We have provided an opportunity for several suitably vetted people to work with us on the local nature reserves. We have also provided an opportunity for some of the staff from Cummins Engines to do some work on Maidendale Local Nature Reserve, which is adjacent to the Cummins’ factory. The employees spent two working alongside our work team to build two timber pond dipping platforms on two of the nature ponds on the reserve. The project worked extremely well since most of the employees were trained engineers and were able to assist in some of “on site” design work required to construct the platforms. The service has developed many other partnership opportunities for Darlington residents to experience practical conservation work first hand. These have been with such organisations as the Princes Trust, McMullen House, Millennium Volunteers, Wm. Morrison Trust, and Haughton School, where we have offered two pupils work placement opportunities. The placement was meant to be for two week in July, but once the placement arrangements had been made in October the school asked if the pupils could additionally attend every Monday morning. We were pleased to annual report 2005-6 text only 3 accommodate this request and subsequently one of the pupils has started looking into the possibility of a career in conservation management. All of the people who work on the service receive informal training in a wide variety of tasks that should prove useful to them in obtaining future employment. These tasks can include such things as using a strimmer, building stiles, steps, kissing gates and small bridges, tree planting and tree felling and wildflower meadow management. They also get the opportunity to meet and socialise with a wide variety of people of all ages in an informal social situation. They also get the opportunity to experience the routine of a work situation without the pressure of normal employment. We have also worked with the Darlington Countryside Service and Business in the Community and have given an opportunity for employees from CITI Financial, a financial services company in Sunderland to assist with repair of a surfaced footpath at Drinkfield Marsh. We have also continued to provide some opportunities for local people to get first hand experience of conservation work through the countryside events programme. These opportunities have included woodland management work at Geneva Wood, pond clearance at Brankin Moor as part of World Wetland Day, tree planting at Maidendale and footpath drainage on the Teesdale Way in Dinsdale Woods. Attendance at these events has been very variable and it has been found that reserves with active steering groups tend to attract more people. annual report 2005-6 text only 4 Management of Nature Reserves The nature reserves benefit from having management plans in place and the majority of the work done on the nature reserves is in line with these plans, although other work is also done, such as responding to acts of vandalism and other unforeseen events. The Whinnies Work on this nature reserve has included: • Removal of hawthorn scrub re-growth within a wildflower meadow area. • Repair cross drains and resurface path after putting new plastic pipe to improve drainage to footpath. • Clear fallen limbs of large willow tree near site entrance gate from housing estate • Vegetation clearance on the side of the reserve’s access paths. • Cutting of dominant meadowsweet to try to diversify the flora at the Goosepool end of the site. • Repair of vandalised footbridge over pond at west end of reserve • The pond extension from last year was found to dry out in the summer and therefore this extension was dug deeper to try to prevent this occurring Brankin Moor This is the smallest of the four original nature reserves and work has included: • Clearing out vegetation from overgrown pond as part of World Wetland Day. This was public participation event. • Planting of seven half-standard elm trees to improve habitat for White Letter Hairstreak butterfly that has been observed close to the reserve. • Vegetation clearance on the side of the site’s access paths. Brinkburn Pond Work on this nature reserve has included: • Vegetation clearance on the side of the site’s access paths. • Repair of vandalism damage to fishing platforms installed by the Environment Agency annual report 2005-6 text only 5 • Strimming of an area of the reserve for an event of the Tees Forest’s Storytelling Festival and erecting a marquee for the event. • Removal of rubbish from the pond. • Erecting of a new sign at the entrance of the reserve from the Black Path Drinkfield Marsh Work on this nature reserve has included: • Vegetation clearance on the side of the site’s access paths. • Strimming grassy areas of the site prior to the Tees Forest’s Storytelling Festival. • Regular strimming of the grassy entrance areas to the reserve. • Re-surfaced approximately 30 metres of eroded footpath with dolomite. This task also included one day of work with 10 volunteers from CITI Financial, a financial services company in Sunderland. • Wildflower meadow management, cutting and removal of vegetation and rotovating area. Geneva Wood Work on this nature reserve has included: • Glade creation by felling some of the dominant conifer species, which also assists with diversifying the canopy mix. One of the workdays was arranged to include members of the active steering group for this nature reserve. • Chipping the brash from the tree felling to prevent it being used as a fuel for vandals to start fires on the reserve. • Path surfacing using locally sourced road plannings and compacting of the plannings to form a good walking surface.