URE CONNECTED

ENGAGING PEOPLE WITH NATURE IN THE LOWER URE VALLEY

Back in July 2023, the Lower Ure Conservation Trust was awarded £250,000 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund for our new project - ‘Ure Connected - Engaging People with Nature in the Lower Ure Valley’.

The project will focus primarily on the Trust’s nature reserve at Nosterfield where rare remnant areas of fen and magnesian limestone are in urgent need of attention. But as the project name suggests, work will also take place at other sites in the River Ure catchment area crying out for habitat restoration.

The aim is to benefit wildlife and  also the communities that live near areas where the work will take place, encouraging people to volunteer to help bring these habitats to life and give them a stake in a better more diverse natural world. The project will last for two and a half years.

New Job Roles

The funding has allowed us to employ two new members of staff. Amy Horton will be our Community Engagement Officer, & Nik Mitchell will take up the first of the Project Internships.

Amy will focus on engaging groups not currently involved in nature conservation and move towards the Trust’s ambition to become a more inclusive heritage organisation. Engagement will include wildlife friendly activities for all ages, community task days, a conservation club for young people, forest school sessions for local schools and taking on work experience students.

We’ve already partnered with local charity, Dementia Forward, with whom we will work to provide days out and volunteering opportunities for people living with young-onset dementia.

Amy will also be looking for ways to improve accessibility and interpretation at Nosterfield Nature Reserve, review the visitor infrastructure and improve our social media platforms.

Nik will be with us for eight months to complete his internship. His role is to assist with delivery of the project on both the practical and engagement sides. The internship is designed to prepare people for work in the conservation sector and we will be running a second internship next year.

 Existing Project Officer, Emma Higgs, has moved into a new role as Project Manager. She is responsible for overseeing the project, undertaking the habitat and reserves management and managing our wonderful volunteers!

Habitat Restoration

The habitat restoration work will focus on wetland and magnesian limestone. In addition to continuing to manage Nosterfield Nature Reserve & Quarry, we’ll be working to restore several County Wildlife Sites (SINCs) in the Lower Ure Valley, as well as the neighbouring neolithic monument, Thornborough Henges, alongside English Heritage.

Sometimes described as the ‘Stonehenge of the North’, the henges have not only great historical significance but great ecological value too due to it’s rare limestone flora. Remnant calcareous grassland is important not only its own right but as part of the story of the monument: indicators of ancient grassland like Rockrose and Dropwort are testimony to the antiquity of the earthworks and represent fragments of the flora which would have been familiar to our Neolithic, Bronze Age and medieval ancestors. The henges have been badly damaged in recent years and the Trust will work with English Heritage & Tarmac to restore ecological diversity to the Middle Henge by propagating and planting around 10,000 local provenance limestone plants. There will be opportunities for the local community to get involved through community planting days, which will be held in autumn 2024 and 2025.

Volunteers

Our volunteers are the lifeblood of the organisation and the project funding will allow us to provide them with more training. This will range from species identification to practical skills like hedge-laying and certified training on vital equipment such as brushcutter or tractor driving.

We’ll also be creating new volunteer roles to make volunteering more accessible to those who might want to do something other than a practical role. A list of current roles are available to view here.

So far..

Habitat work

Since the project started in July 2023 we’ve been very busy! Work has included:

• Pulling invasive Himalayan Balsam in the Ings Goit, a waterway that flows into Nosterfield Quarry

• Continuing with the fen creation project at Nosterfield Quarry, through planting wetland species propagated in our polytunnel - You can read more about our plant propagation and wetland creation projects on our Yorkshire Water Biodiversity Fund page.

• Removal of invasive Garden Lady’s-mantle from reserve silt lagoons

• Hay cutting at several County Wildlife Sites to restore species-rich grasslands inc. Theakston Lane nr Richmond, Moor Lane nr Snape, St. John’s Churchyard nr Ripon & Farnham bank nr Knaresborough.

• Creation of new species-rich grasslands at Nosterfield Quarry by spreading green hay from the above sites

• Nettle-pulling on the Thornborough Henges

• Removal of willow seedlings on the main reserves, this maintains the open habitat breeding waders need for nesting

• Removal of invasive Red Osier Dogwood from an area of ancient wetland near Ripon

• Maintaining and cutting new glades in the woodland belt around Nosterfield Quarry to create a more diverse structure

• Autumn grassland maintenance cuts of County Wildlife Sites

• Planting limestone plants at the Thornborough Henges on recently restored area

On top of all this, our volunteers also carry out regular duties such as hide cleaning, litter picking, clearing paths and maintaining visitor infrastructure.

Community Work Days

Our Community Work Days are held on Saturday mornings (every other month) to allow those not able to come in the week to still get involved.

• In July, we made up a massive 137 lesser reedmace sandbag planters which allow us to plant in deeper water safely.

• In September, we cut and raked an area on the Thornborough Henges to improve the limestone grassland.

• This weekend we’ll be making fish refuges by bundling up willow that’s been recently coppiced. The bundles will be sank into the lakes and reedbed at Nosterfield Quarry where they provide hiding places for fish fry.

Conservation Club for young people

We held our very first weekend Conservation Club for young people aged between 14-18 in October.

Our four attendees spent the morning constructing dead-hedges from trees that have been recently felled to create glades. They learnt about woodland management and how to use tools like loppers and billhooks.

Dementia Forward Groups

We’ve now hosted four Dementia Forward ‘Time Out Together’ groups which allows people living with young-onset dementia to come for days out to the reserve, hopefully benefitting from the calm, peaceful, natural environment.

We’ve put on a variety of activities so far, such as bird ringing demonstrations, making sandbag planters, guided walks and clay imprinting with natural materials.

Guided walks

We’ve also hosted visitors from Richmond Walking & Book Festival, Northallerton U3A group and Harrogate MIND.

Volunteer hours

We’ve set a project target of 7,500 hours of practical work for the NLHF project. From the beginning of the project in July 2023 to the end of September 2023, we logged a massive 1,135 hours.

More updates coming soon!

A huge THANK YOU to all the National Lottery players who have made this project possible.