Wild Oxfordshire

WILD Oxfordshire and CPRE, the Countryside Charity, are delighted to announce a new hedgerow initiative working with some of the county’s community groups.

Hedgerows are vital for wildlife such as small mammals, farmland birds and perennial wildflowers and many invertebrates benefit from healthy, dense mixed species hedges with few gaps. They provide a home, hunting ground, shelter and routes of travel within our increasingly fragmented and intensively managed landscape.

A CPRE survey carried out in the late Nineties showed there were about 7,820km of hedgerows in Oxfordshire.

A 40 per cent increase would see an additional 3,128km by 2050, or 108km a year, which sounds ambitious but with 235 parishes in the county, it’s the equivalent of just 0.5km per parish per year.

Wild Oxfordshire is working with the community groups and parish councils to plant new hedgerows and rejuvenate exhausted ones.

We hope to create a helpful community project template to encourage others to take action. How you can help:

• Take part in the Great British Hedgerow Survey at https://hedgerowsurvey.
ptes.org

· • Plant a new native hedge or fill in the gaps of an existing hedge this winter.

· • Community groups and schools can apply for free trees at www.woodlandtrust.
org.uk/plant-trees/schools-and-communities

·For more infomation, call 07787 414371 or visit www.wildoxfordshire.org.uk