The site
‘Outside’ is a 1-hectare site between Churchstow and Bantham in South Devon. This former farmland was heavily degraded with old machinery, building rubble and tyres scattered throughout the site.
The project involved the development of a café and skate bowl for community use and a farm for organic vegetable production. In 2021, Wychwood was commissioned by the owner to develop plans to restore the site and increase biodiversity value, through creating new wild flower meadows, traditional orchards and native shrub habitats, including nesting and foraging habitat for the nationally rare cirl bunting.
What we did
- Wychwood surveyed for existing wildlife to ensure it remained protected through the construction phase.
- We agreed a biodiversity management plan with the owners and the planning authority
- Supported the clearance of old machinery, rubble and contaminants.
- We led volunteer planting of native hedgerows, fruit trees and seeding of wild flower meadows.
- We installed bird nest boxes in the hedgerow and bat roost boxes in the woodland.
Plan going forwards
In 2023 we’ll work with community members to dig a small wildlife pond and plant it with wetland wild flowers. We’ll also complete the shrub planting for the Cirl buntings. Now the café building is complete we’ll construct a swallow nesting ledge ahead of the next nesting season. With community help we’ll continue to hand weed the grassland areas of the site, where a lot of docks have come through post-construction.
We will continue our light touch management for hedgerows and native shrub patches, to encourage bushy growth, flowering and fruiting.
Monitoring
Looking forwards, the plan is to carry out annual surveys of botany, pollinators and birds at the site. We’ll engage community members and local schools to help with the monitoring and will share the results locally and online to ensure the site achieves its full potential.
