What a wet and waterlogged welcome to Winter we have worked through. With the extended and repeated heavy spells of rain we had in September, we found a lot of plans needing to be changed on the back of emergency response required to ensure livestock welfare. Animals we stranded on a couple of sites, as they moved to the higher ground and any attempt to remove them from the site would have placed both them and the livestock personnel in greater danger.

Trees with shallow roots and full crowns were impacted by the various named storms, Bert and Darragh were both felt on different sites. Trees open to the South were impacted by Bert with lifted root plates and snapped branches both causing issues to access routes, predominately public footpaths rather than roads thankfully.

The Wildlife Trusts livestock have been at work on a number of sites and ably assisted by graziers animals to get the grassland into suitable condition ahead of the winter months. The animals that were affected by the floods were removed after the water receded to avoid any additional poaching impacts, but this still proved challenging to the personnel involved. Animals were also moved about the sites to help ensure comprehensive grazing impacts or to accommodate welfare requirements, such as winter health checks or to facilitate breeding activities.

The volunteer teams have been active as per usual, with amazing turnouts throughout the Autumn months and they have been assisting with the management of sites across the county. The main thrust for the season has been path side clearance and management of the scrub encroaching on the grassland sites. The sites are still holding a lot of water and this is causing a couple of issues with access to proposed work areas, so tools and materials are having to be carried in rather than have the ground impacted by vehicles.

As we find our feet at Strawberry hill now we are in full possession following the most successful appeal we have ever run, we are attempting to make the visitor access experience easier. To this end we have added in a couple of new paths to link the existing rights of way, which mostly run east-west across the site. The team of volunteers worked hard on the creation of a new trail between the central bridleway and the footpath to the south with the path of least resistance taken through the scrub blocks to join up several glades.