Meet Howard — insights from our Project Manager

It’s exciting times for our New Life on the Old West project as we’re off and running. Since joining at the start of January 2021, Project Manager Howard has been busy. He’s been putting a talented project team together, applying for consent and permissions for the work he plans to do, and getting to know our local communities, our project partners and stakeholders. Howard previously worked for nature and conservation bodies, such as National Trust and South & West Wales Wildlife Trust, and recently worked on a major National Lottery supported orchard survey, restoration and creation project in the East of England and is very excited to use what he’s learned for this project.

Thanks to the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s kind support, and National Lottery players, we will spend the next three years delivering 92 planned habitat enhancements for our threatened Fenland wildlife, at 34 different sites across 9 rural and varied parishes – Cottenham, Willingham, Wicken, Haddenham, Over, Little Thetford, Stretham, Wilburton, Rampton.

We’ll help make around 3.9km of drainage ditches (the famous watery hedges of the Fens) more wildlife-friendly – by adding berms to create long strips of shallow water within the ditches; shallow water with up to 10cm depth is the most important freshwater habitat for wildlife. These berms will help many different animals, such as the water vole, toads, eels and grass snakes, as well as rare ditch dwelling plants and beetles. We’ll dig 25 new ponds and scrapes, all of differing sizes and depths – helping provide homes and feeding opportunities for waterfowl and wading birds, thirsty turtle doves, amphibians and fish. Expect to see more dragonflies and damselflies spinning overhead at these sites, perhaps hunted by an acrobatic hobby.

We’ll create about 82 hectares of wildflower-rich areas – wildflower hay meadows on farms and community green spaces, plus planting flower plugs tolerant of mowing on more heavily managed green space. We’ll translocate two incredibly rare fen-relic species, the greater water parsnip, and the frankly weird and wonderful looking eyed longhorn beetle, from nearby locations. We hope to widen their range and make their futures more secure in our landscape. We’ll also plant orchards, rare black poplar trees and species-rich hedges, install bat boxes and bug hotels and much more.

This work will create multiple habitat stepping-stones along the course of the Old West River, between its confluence with the River Cam, to where it meets the Ouse Washes at Earith Junction – linking the two large internationally known nature reserves at National Trust’s Wicken Fen and RPSB’s Ouse Fen and Ouse Washes. Our Fenland wildlife should be able to move more readily through the landscape, travelling from and between these two highly nature-rich areas.

We can’t do all this alone. Many of our busy farmers, local parish councils, the Internal Drainage Boards and around 50 other partners and community bodies have promised to help! And, most importantly, we’re recruiting (we hope loads) of volunteers to help – with habitat creation work parties, wildlife surveys and monitoring, and we also want to explore and celebrate the unique history and culture of the Fens, so need volunteers to come along and enjoy archaeological digs, share their photographs of the area, record stories and memories from those who have lived a long time in the Fens.

We’re going to run events showing people how they can recognize and record the wild things around them, how to create and manage small wetland sites and wildflower meadows, open farm days for kids, guided walks and species identification courses, and a lot more. Some talks and events will be online and, when it is again possible to do so, we’ll be back outdoors, making sure everything is Covid secure and everyone kept safe. With my fingers very firmly crossed indeed, I hope we’ll be able to hold a celebratory socially distanced launch event later in summer. Look out for us across the Old West communities, follow us on Twitter and Facebook and keep an eye on this website… we’re revamping it so we can more easily share our volunteer’s stories, news of our progress, wildlife sightings, upcoming events and more. We’re up and running, there’s going to be loads to do, enjoy and share, and it should all be very good fun.