Team Wilder TWEAS story FO Gores Marsh Park

“Our group is newly formed and we would love to improve the park for wildlife. We know there are bats, hedgehogs, moths, birds around, and we have ideas (a pond, improved hedges, planting for pollinators) but little expertise. The goal is to create a solid plan that would have optimal impact so that we are able to apply for funding.”

Overview

Charlie reached out to the Team Wilder Ecological Advisory Service (TWEAS) with lots of motivation for improving her local park, having recently become the new chair of the friends of group.

They wanted to find out more about the right options for the park, what would be easy wins, and what could be more ambitious future plans to work towards.

Amie, TWEAS Community Ecologist, met Charlie along with Isabel, TWEAS volunteer, to learn more about the site, their ideas, and the capacity of the group. We learned from Charlie that the park was formerly an open amenity space with only turf grass but was first developed by the local community 20 years ago, with a children’s play area and a variety of trees planted which are now mature.

The Friends of Gores Marsh Park now wishes to continue improving the space, which is bordered by roads on two sides and by back gardens on the other two. We looked at opportunities to increase the diversity of habitats of the site, including adding a pond, planting more of a hedgerow to along the south and western perimeter fences, and establishing the same tree planting regime near Smythe Road as is found on the south side of the play park. We identified ways to protect wildflower beds from mowing and produced some ideas to plant a flower bed around an disused open gutter that surrounds much of the park.

Soil pH testing showed the soil to be acidic in the existing meadow area, therefore, we recommended some acid-loving plants (many of which are shade tolerant, so suitable for the areas under the trees) in the report.

Advice from TWEAS

• Protect existing wildflower patches from mowing, by placing logs and obvious large stones.
• Establish more shade-tolerant wildflowers in the margins of the site that cannot be mown and focus on food plants for butterflies and moths.
• Plant native climbing vine species along the children's area railings to encourage more hedge-like habitat and pollen sources.
• Consider applying for funding and permissions from Bristol City Council for a wildlife pond. Appropriate spaces for a pond would be a shadier area of the park away from a tree canopy where leaves would build up in autumn. Ensure the pond is around 60 –80cm deep and very well vegetated around the margins. Bug hotels and log piles around the pond are essential complementary habitat.
• Consider adding bat and bird boxes to the trees around the park and gardens nearby.

Resulting Actions

• Lead a community consultation in the park to gather local opinions of what the park needs for improvement, to inform the park plan.
• Creation of the Park Improvement Plan, submitted and agreed with Bristol City Council
• Regular litter pick walks around the park with good attendance
• Engaged with Your Park to gain follow on support for creating habitats in the park
• Positive reception of the pond proposal by BCC
• Community moth trapping event held by Charlie resulting in the BS3 Moth Report
• Organised Park Picnics to galvanize more community interest in the park

What next?

Charlie has hopes to have a wildlife pond approved for construction in the park in the coming years. Bristol City Council is negotiating the responsibilities and funding streams with Friends of Gores Marsh Park to ensure the pond can be created in the optimal area, with appropriate safety measure such as fencing, and a clearly outlines management plan for the Friends of Gores Marsh group to follow. This is very exciting as the area has a rich invertebrate population but very few open water sources.

Feedback from Charlie

“I thought I would get in touch as I've just submitteded our park Group's Park Improvement Plan to the council and thought you might be interested to see the document. Many of the ideas from your report are in there, with a couple of extras too. I've managed to make some good contacts who can help us with funding applications and so feeling really positive that we'll make our vision a reality!

I also thought you might be interested in a little community wildlife project I ran last year - the BS3 Moth Project. The BS3 wildlife group leant me a moth trap (I think I mentioned my slight obsession :) ) and so I hosted moth mornings and took the trap into local garden so lots of folk could experience the joy of mothing! It was a great project and I'll be doing it again this year! Hoping to run larger Moth Morning events - Redcatch Park have invited me to do one there for example.

I have attached the Moth Project report I created, as well as the Park Improvement plan for you to have a look at. [See links to documents above]. Thanks again, we couldn't be doing it without your knowledge, ideas and support.”