Trust awarded £300,000 grant towards £½ million project for Kent ‘wilderness’
Kent Wildlife Trust has successfully secured funding towards its Great Wilderness Down Conservation Complex project centred on Spuckles and Kennelling Wood nature reserves north of Charing.
£297,937 has been awarded to the Trust by GrantScape as part of its 2009 'Working with Nature' grant programme and was one of only five successful bids from across England and Wales - with grants awarded totalling £1.16 million.
Kent Wildlife Trust’s project will restore and create a mosaic of high biodiversity value habitats in the Mid-Kent Downs, with the main focus being on the last vestiges of vulnerable chalk grassland habitat.
It will be centred on the Trust’s existing reserves comprising 55 acres at Spuckles Wood, Kennelling Wood and School Meadow, near Stalisfield Green and extend over a further 168 acres of improved arable, native woodland and agriculturally improved grassland.
The UK holds half of the world’s surviving chalk grassland, with Kent containing some five per cent. The project will restore and recreate 160 acres of this species-rich habitat.
In addition, the project will contribute to targets for four other UK Biodiversity Action Plan (UKBAP) habitats, and for the rare dormouse, which is now vulnerable to extinction. Works will include planting 4.5km and restoring an additional 4.5km of existing species-rich hedgerow corridors, and creating 30 new wildlife ponds.
John McAllister, Head of Reserves (East) for Kent Wildlife Trust, said: "The Wilderness Down area is a stunningly beautiful landscape with huge potential for restoring and re-connecting wildlife habitats and the rich diversity of native plants and animals they support. At a stroke, the GrantScape ‘Working with Nature’ funding will enable this exciting project to commence after years of planning and anticipation."
GrantScape’s trustees, supported by an independent specialist advisory panel, selected five projects to receive grants. These projects were chosen for the significance of their biodiversity value and the important contributions that they are expected to make to national biodiversity objectives.
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