Tees Valley Biodiversity Partnership

Click below to download the latest Tees Valley Biodiversity Partnership newsletter- for an update of local and national biodiversity news and infomation

TVBP e-news Dec 2011

Over 50 people gathered for the TVBP annual gathering was held on the 2 November at the Wildlife Discovery Centre at Saltholme. The three themes of the gathering were:

• Shaping the landscape- national context and local drivers
• Our Tees Valley Landscapes
• Reconnecting people and Landscapes in the Tees Valley

A programme of the day can be downloaded here Final Programme TVBP annual gathering Nov 2011

Presentations of the speakers can be downloaded

Jeremy Garside TVWT  Presentation
Stephen Catchpole TVU  Presentation
Adrian Vass Natural England  Presentaion
John Mann Teesside Environment Trust Presentation
Anne-Louise Orange Groundwork Presentation
Sue Antrobus TVBP Presentation
Deborah Jefferson and Jo Haskett Hartlepool Borough Council Presentation
Christine Corbett  Boro Becks   Presentation

On 3 July 2011 the TVBP held a wildlife workshop on the identification, ecology and management of the lowland meadows of the Tees Valley. This was led by Helen Herring of the Wildflower Ark. Here are a few photographs from the day.

Tees Valley Pondscape report and database CD published

The final report of the Tees Valley Pondscape project (2008-11) with ecological data sets is now available in a CD format from the Tees Valley Biodiversity Partnership. Ecological surveying and mapping carried out as part of the project has produced a large database of information that will of great interest to a wide range of people including land use planners, ecological consultants, naturalists and conservation practitioners.

To receive a copy contacts the TVBP coordinator.

Visit the Ponbdscape web pages

Local Nature Partnerships – a logical step forward for the Tees Valley Biodiversity Partnership

Local Nature Partnerships are one of the key proposals made in the Natural Environment White Paper. They will be strategic partnerships of organisations that work to create a shared vision for their area and deliver integrated, environmental outcomes. DEFRA are inviting applications for transition funding to help Local BAP groups and other local partnerships to widen their remit to develop a new integrated environmental vision and improve the natural environment in a collaborative way that reflects wider social and economic benefits. Local Nature Partnerships are anticipated to work closely with Local Enterprise Partnerships and the newly created Health and Wellbeing Partnerships.
What will Local Nature Partnerships do?

• demonstrate local leadership, raising awareness about the vital services and benefits which a healthy natural environment brings for people, communities and the local economy;
• use their knowledge and expertise to develop a shared environmental vision and set of priorities for their area (this could highlight how protection and enhancement of the natural environment can bring economic and social benefits or could include measures to establish and improve local ecological networks at a landscape scale);
• add value to a local area‘s development through contributing to local authority plans that affect the environment, as well as local plans and local development frameworks;
• help contribute to the Green Economy by, for example, providing relevant information for Local Enterprise Partnerships in development of their plans;
• bring together a range of local stakeholders, which may include people from local authorities, businesses, statutory authorities, civil society organisations, land managers, local record centres, local enterprise partnerships and people from communities themselves who can align efforts and make best use of available resources;
• co-operate with other partnerships where this results in more efficient use of resources and better outcomes. work at a landscape scale to improve the range of benefits and services we get from a healthy natural environment.

The TVBP is working on an application to become a Local Nature Partnership for the Tees Valley. The Tees Valley Biodiversity steering group met on the 12th June and decided that becoming a Local Nature Partnership for the Tees Valley was a positive, logical step forward as it is already carry out many of the functions proposed for Local Nature Partnerships. The TVBP will be submitting an application to meet the end of July deadline for transitional funding.
For more information contact the TVBP Coordinator

A copy of the TVBP e- newsletter (July 2011) can be downloaded here.
TVBP june 2011 final pdf

The newsletter is a quick and simple way to keep TVBP partners up to date with local, regional and national biodiversity news. If you wish to be added to the e-news circulation list please contact the TVBP coordinator.

Here is a copy of the 2010 annual report of the Tees Valley Biodiversity Partnership for you to download.
It summarises the key activities and achievements of the partnership during the year.
A small number of printed versions are available through the Tees Valley Biodiversity Coordinator on request.

TVBP annual report 2010 low res

Introduction
In 2010 the Tees Valley Biodiversity Partnership (TVBP) commissioned the Wildflower Ark to carry out a survey of fen habitat in the Tees Valley (Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Stockton and Redcar and Cleveland). The project was funded by Natural England for the following purposes;
• To identify and map the extent of NVC fen/wetland habitat on Local sites
• To provide habitat data captured on GIS to an appropriate standard to allow it to be incorporated into Natural England’ updates of the Habitat Inventories.

The project was completed in 2010. The data is held by the Wildflower Ark and Natural England. Below is a summary provided by Martin Allen of the Wildflower Ark.

The survey
A total of 13 different sites of herb-rich fens and bogs in the Lower Tees Valley were surveyed in summer/autumn 2010 by the Wildflower Ark.  Each site was split into different plant communities (according to the National Vegetation Classification (NVC); M (mire) and S (swamp) communities only) and then every plant and moss was identified in a series of 2m by 2m squares chosen within the community. A list was made of all the plants and mosses in the community and their relative abundance. The sites were chosen from the Local Wildlife Sites list.

Results
There was a total of 10.35 ha of fen, swamp, or bog plant communities – the largest being 2.5 ha and the smallest 0.02 ha. Of the 25 separate plant communities surveyed, 17 were less than 0.5 ha. Of the 16 different communities found, the most common was M22 Blunt-flowered Rush and Marsh Thistle fen-meadow. This was also the most species-rich community, commonly having over 40 species present and was generally found on a sloping site kept moist by a spring. Next most common was M27 Meadowsweet-Wild Angelica mire which is characteristic of damp ungrazed areas on fairly nutrient-rich soil. Other NVC communities were S6, S10, S11c, S27b, S28, M5/M23, M6, M23; sometimes it was difficult to easily assign a plant community to the published accounts as some of the species were atypical. This was particularly the case with Sharp-flowered Rush replacing the absent Blunt-flowered Rush within most of the M22 communities.

Comment
Owing to the small scale of the majority of the fens and their fragmented distribution across the local landscape, there are two pressing concerns for the future of fen sites in our area; one is the effect of increasing amounts of fertiliser getting into the marshes either through more nutrient-rich water entering the system via a spring/runoff from surrounding arable land, or simply as pollution from the rain (around 10 – 15 kg Nitrogen per hectare per year at present). More nutrients enable the larger, more robust wildflowers to grow and shade out the smaller ones. Although the effect of nutrients was only clearly damaging one site (and some mitigation had been undertaken) and only another two sites looked as if they could be deteriorating slightly, once nutrients are added to the system they are very difficult to remove.
The second is how the sites are managed. This is particularly a problem with the grazing fen communities (M22) which require regular grazing to maintain the presence of many of their smaller wildflowers. Some sites are small and either not forming a useful economic part of the present farm or are simply isolated units of land no longer part of a farm. Nutrient-rich ungrazed sites tend to favour larger more vigorous wildflowers, the smaller plants being shaded out. Half of the ten M22 stands were grazed and in good condition. Ungrazed stands can develop into M27 communities which tend to be less species-rich.
One community has changed over the last 20 years from M10 to M22 with sadly the loss of Bird’s-eye Primrose at its only site within the area, although a few mosses and sedges still remain from the M10 community.

Notable plants for the Lower Tees Valley
Two new populations of Tufted-sedge (rare in the north-east) were found near Darlington, along with Tubular Water-dropwort and Skullcap both not present in the old Cleveland area. Two sites north of Wynyard had present Blunt-flowered Rush, a predominantly southern species which was thought not to grow within the old Cleveland boundary. Other plants noted that are rare in our area were Marsh Speedwell, Water-violet, and the acid bog-plant Round-leaved Sundew.  Most sites had some of the scarce Marsh Valerian, Bogbean, or Marsh Cinquefoil.

Survey work contributing to the ‘Hedgerows’ HAP continued in 2010 through a Defra-funded hedgerow survey in Hartlepool, carried out by The Wildflower Ark. A grant of £4,900 was awarded to the Ark in April last year allowing the field survey to be carried out over the summer and autumn.
The aim of the Hartlepool Hedgerow Survey was to establish the extent, character, condition and management requirements of hedgerows in the borough of Hartlepool by carrying out a random survey of hedgerows following the method given in Defra’s Hedgerow Survey Handbook. Using this standardised method allows the data to be collated nationally as well as locally, thus contributing to both the local and national HAPs. In addition to collecting information on extent and character, the survey method also allows the condition of hedgerows to be assessed. This will allow future hedgerow management to be targeted appropriately in order to increase the number of hedgerows in the borough that are in favourable condition for biodiversity.

The Wildflower Ark were assisted in the hedgerow survey by 23 volunteers who were trained in the survey method and contributed over 30 days of field work. In total, 183 hedges were surveyed, equating to 41.53km. The character of the hedgerows was similar across the borough. Almost all of them (86%) were shrubby hedgerows consisting predominantly of Hawthorn (present in 97% of the hedgerows) with additional species such as Dog Rose (47%), Bramble (41%), Elder (40%), Blackthorn (28%), Ash (21%) and Sycamore (13%). In total there were 76 isolated hedgerow trees, predominantly Ash (43) or Sycamore (21). Over half of the hedgerows were mixed (i.e. not dominated by one species) and over a quarter of the hedgerows (27%) were also species-rich, meaning they contained four or more native woody species in the 30m section that was surveyed.

Of the 183 hedgerows surveyed, only 5% were found to be in favourable condition. Favourable condition is assessed on six different attributes: hedgerow dimensions, percentage of gaps along the hedgerow length, basal canopy height, width of undisturbed ground at the base of the hedgerow, herbaceous vegetation cover at the base of the hedgerow, and presence of introduced species. Each attribute has an acceptable threshold and a hedgerow must be within this threshold for all six attributes in order to be classified as in favourable condition. Of the 95% of hedgerows that were not in favourable condition, the majority of them failed on the basal canopy height, meaning the gap between the ground and the bottom of the hedgerow canopy was too great.

The survey data has been collated onto both Defra’s online database and a GIS database and will be distributed to local statutory and non-statutory conservation bodies, the regional record centre, and Defra. A full report of the survey will be available to download in February on this website as well as at www.wildflowerark.org.uk

During the winter of 2009/2010 the Tees Valley Biodiversity Partnership coordinated the planting of seven new hedgerows in the Tees Valley with funding from the Tree Council’s “Real Hedges Fund” and support from local authorities, local industry and volunteers from local community groups. In total 3,288 m of hedge were planted and 163 hedgerow trees on a range of urban, industrial and rural locations that ranged that included a steel works, a cemetery, allotments, a brownfield nature reserve, rural farmland, a National Nature Reserve and an urban green space.

For one of the projects Hartlepool Borough Council experimented with the use of a wed suppressant fabric. Deborah Jefferson of the HBC Countryside Team reports on the results;

We planted an 800m stretch of mixed hedgerow along the boundary of Seaton Common was planted in the winter of 2010.  As part of the planting scheme it was decided to use a weed suppressant fabric and a thick layer of mulch to curb weed growth and reduce competition with the surrounding vegetation as the planted area is very exposed and normal shrub growth in the area is stunted.  It was also thought that the extra initial effort would reduce future maintenance of the hedge.
The entire hedgerow was planted and approximately half of it had the fabric and mulch added before mulch supplies dried up in the spring of 2010.  When supplies were replenished in October and the mulching resumed a significant difference in the growth rates between the two sections was observed, with growth in the mulched section exceeding that in the un-mulched area by approximately 30-40cm.  There was little weed re-growth and a low percentage of losses with only 2% noted in the mulched section.
Although the benefits are considerable there are also a number of drawbacks associated with the project, primarily based around costs.  The Terram fabric was reasonably priced at £430 as seconds were purchased to save money and it has proved more than adequate.  The mulch was provided free of charge by HBC Grounds Maintenance team which was fortunate as 35 tonnes were used due to the unevenness of the terrain.  Unfortunately for anyone who doesn’t have this option a 30 tonne load will set you back £800 from Kielder Forest Products.  The additional work is very labour intensive and subsequently the biggest cost is in Staff and Volunteer time.  An additional 15 Task days were required to trench and secure the fabric and manually apply the mulch which equates to 85 volunteer days and 20 staff days.  If an arbitrary figure of £50 is applied per person per day the cost is in excess of £5,000 and takes the grand total of the additional work to almost £6,500. 

In cash terms the project has only cost us £430 and we are more than happy with the results.  We now have 400m of well established hedgerow and a further 400m which will hopefully catch up to its neighbour during the next few years.  In the longer term we will save money on gapping up and maintenance and if resources allow we would recommend this option to anyone planting in hostile environments.