A Cheshire shoot, which is part of BASC’s Green Shoots project, has been awarded funding to carry out important habitat improvement work such as planting new woodland and digging new ponds.
BASC’s Green Shoots officer for Cheshire, Ben Gregory successfully bid for 75% funding on the shoot’s behalf through the Sandstone Ridge Econet Partnership run by Cheshire County Council.
The money will mean the landowner and shoot captain can plant 8,000 square metres of broadleaved woodland, create two ponds, initiate a traditional seven year rotation coppice in an area of woodland that has over the years become neglected and overgrown with bracken and install ten bat boxes in an area of woodland classed as a Site of Biological Importance (SBI).
BASC’s Green Shoots officer for Cheshire, Ben Gregory, said: “The work will help to improve a little corner of Cheshire that has been left unmanaged for years into a prime shooting and wildlife area. The land management carried out through the shooting interest will make the area sustainable, by encouraging active management.”
NOTES TO EDITORS
• BASC’s Green Shoots programme is a unique collaboration between people who manage land for shooting and other conservation groups. It allows access to land used for shooting for survey and management work designed to meet Cheshire’s biodiversity targets to improve the range and diversity of plants, animals, birds and insects.
• The Sandstone Ridge Econet Partnership (SREP) is an initiative led by Cheshire County Council which works with local people, businesses and communities along the ridge which comprises 20 square km of woodland, heathland, peatland and a chain of hill top Iron Age Forts between the towns of Frodsham and Bickerton.