{"id":539,"date":"2011-05-03T17:46:14","date_gmt":"2011-05-03T17:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/?p=539"},"modified":"2011-05-13T12:00:50","modified_gmt":"2011-05-13T12:00:50","slug":"tiptoe-through-the-trees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/?p=539","title":{"rendered":"Tiptoe softly through the trees – conservationists at work"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Horsington<\/a>
Danger, conservationists at work<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Richard Gaunt writes: <\/em> The half dozen regular users of the footpath between Batchpool Lane and Marsh Lane, dog walkers all, have been intrigued by the \u201cCounty Wildlife Site\u201d notices, adorned with the South Somerset District Council badge, which have suddenly appeared around the perimeter of the fields between the footpath and the old railway line.<\/div>\n
\u201cPlease assist ongoing conservation work\u201d, begs the notice.<\/div>\n
\n

Underneath there are sterner warnings.
\n\u201cUse only the designated footpath\u201d.
\n\u201cAll dogs to be kept under close control\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Heavy stuff, as on the face of it this is arable land which is regularly ploughed, harrowed, seeded, sprayed and harvested using heavy tractors and equipment, and it is difficult to see what adverse effect a few sedate dog\u00a0 walkers can have on this environment, or how they could upset any conservation work. In the season, there is regular shooting.<\/p>\n

I asked Mr Rhys, the agent for the land, owned by Horsington Manor, about the conservation work, but have not had a response.<\/p><\/div>\n

\n
So I asked the Somerset County Council, who were most helpful.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The Somerset Environmental Records Centre has confirmed that the area is the \u201cHorsington North Park Local Wildlife Site (LWS)\u201d. (Not \u201cCounty\u201d).<\/p>\n

The site was assessed back in 2002\/3 when it was given Local Wildlife status because of the important veteran trees, but it appears the site has not been re-visited or assessed since that time. Veteran trees are conserved because they are particularly valuable for wildlife and in Somerset there is a Somerset Wood Pasture, Parkland & Veteran Trees HAP<\/a> ( Biodiversity Action Plan for Veteran Trees).<\/div>\n

These sites have no statutory status and confer no additional rights or obligations on anyone. There are no additional restrictions over agricultural operations, and no new rights of access are created.<\/p>\n

No public money has been spent on this site, but ownership of one puts you well up the queue for other grant support, if available.<\/p><\/div>\n

It all seems a bit of much ado about nothing, and I can\u2019t help thinking the notices are a lot of huff and puff about \u201cGet off my Land\u201d.<\/div>\n
Why they have suddenly put up official looking notices with no statutory backing (and promoted the site from a \u201clocal\u201d site to a \u201cCounty\u201d one) after nearly a decade is a mystery.
\nBut if you go near a veteran tree, tiptoe carefully!<\/div>\n
<\/em><\/div>\n
Thanks, Richard. More comments welcome. There is more
\ninformation at<\/em>
\n http:\/\/www.somerc.com\/local+wildlife+sites\/<\/a><\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Gaunt writes: The half dozen regular users of the footpath between Batchpool Lane and Marsh Lane, dog walkers all, have been intrigued by the \u201cCounty Wildlife Site\u201d notices, adorned with the South Somerset District Council badge, which have suddenly appeared around the perimeter of the fields between the footpath and the old railway line. … Continue reading “Tiptoe softly through the trees – conservationists at work”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2757],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6glYD-8H","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=539"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":549,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions\/549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}