Chailey Commons site visit with Forestry England

Lydia Baxter      

Wilder Ouse Project Officer

I recently took three members of staff from Forestry England to see the leaky dams installed at Chailey Common Nature reserve last winter. 

Forestry England are wanting to install leaky dams after seeing a case study written by Sam Buckland of the Sussex Flow Initiative (my predecessor) and decided to organise a site visit in order to figure out what sort of leaky dams would best suit their own site and to see the benefits with their own eyes. 

During the walkabout at Romany Ridge, the team saw a lot of life including a baby Grass Snake, eight species of butterfly and moth, a Common Lizard and baby Frogs in the new seasonal ponds - created as a result of the leaky dams – all great news for the project as this shows the healthy functionality of the ecosystems here, especially as juveniles indicate breeding is occurring there for a number of different species.

Forestry England (FE) loved seeing the evidence that leaky dams increase water quality as the scum, silt and leaf litter caught in the dams proved how many pollutants they can remove from the water as it travels through the site. Myself, the school children, and the volunteers had all played around with different designs to be able to see which proved most effective in filtering and slowing down the water. It was clear that all the designs worked to a certain degree, but the site visit was most useful as the FE team could then decide that Gully Stuffing was going to be the best approach given the small width of the stream and the steep banks on their own site.

It was great being able to communicate with and help out another conservation team. Working together is more effective for nature and creates a more unified approach to help tackle biodiversity loss and increase climate resilience at a landscape scale. Thanks for visiting us Forestry England, can’t wait to see the leaky dams.