Bumper crop of HLS agreements go live

 In a flurry of activity over the last few months no less than three new Higher Level Stewardship agreements have been signed up in the Cayton and Flixton Carrs Wetland Project area. Project Officer Tim Burkinshaw and Natural England Advisor Jackie Roberts have been working hard with a number of farmers to negotiate new environmental schemes in and around the peat carr land. 

Across the three farms a total of 130 hectares of grassland is to be restored to to damp pasture to attract nesting waders.  This will more than treble the area of wet grassland habitats managed under HLS by farms in the Project. A large number of other environmental options will be managed on the farms on the drier soils including chalk grassland, hedgerows and sacrificial seed crops to feed birds over winter. This package of arable and pastoral options will benefit a wide range of declining farmland birds as well as wetland species.

The new farm stewardship agreements are the first crop of what is expected to be a bumper harvest for wildlife lovers over the next 12 months, with a further three landowners engaged with the Cayton and Flixton project in detailed planning of their own HLS applications. Whilst some of the habitat restoration works will commence over the winter, installing sluices to control water levels, the major earthmoving work excavate shallow wet features on the fields (scrapes) is likely to take place in summer 2010.