Vetch, forget-me-not and crosswort I was taking every opportunity to put together a photographic archive of the flora of the verge at Ghyll Brow. I was enjoying the discovery of fresh flowers and their beauty, the sharp contrasts of colour, the intricacy of structure. In the cold and windy weather I'm always looking out for butterflies and bees, for our essential pollinators. This morning I was struck by the sheer abundance of forget-me-not , and all the emergent flowers amongst them.. If only I had taken one last photograph.
Where flowers grew Two days ago, an item on radio 4 raised awareness of the importance of the roadside verge across the UK. Biodiversity is here in this precious resource for flora and pollinators. Ghyll Brow is a microcosm and the threat to biodiversity is echoed across the country. The threat was closer to home, more imminent than I realised when I set out for Scout Scar at 8.00 am as the sun shone on a wondrous haze of forget-me-not . When I returned that way the lot had gone. A brutal swathe had been taken out, rough-cut across the verge, leaving only a handful of flowers protected within the dense shrubs that grow on the steepest part of the bank. Forget-me-nots aren't tall flowers, they did not over hang bank or road. The cut was crude, wide and haphazard.
Whoever did it was not interested in making the way safe for pedestrians because dead brambles reaching out into the road on the stretch by the Ghyll Brow houses had not been touched. There had been no attempt to clear up litter exposed by the cut. Keith Dunn who walks here daily was angry too. We locals who come this way often talk about the flowers.
I rang The Highways Agency, Cumbria County Council. David Huck spoke to his contractors who assured him this was not their work. We had a long chat about conservation of roadside verges and the constraints the Highways Agency must work with. Roads are colour coded and this stretch of Brigsteer Road should not be cut until September, giving seed time to set. The type of cut specified is appropriate to the ecology of the verge here, and it is more sensitive and considered.
So a maverick cut. Useless to speculate, the damage is done. But we’ve made our point and I’ve made a further contact. I’m asking how we can raise awareness, how we might try to protect the resource of the verge at Ghyll Brow.
Earlier this year I wrote a blog An Elegy for Ghyll Brow which you may find in the archive. But I didn’t see this coming. Several years ago the verge was subjected to a ferocious slashing that left jagged spikes of saplings jutting from the bank.
It is dispiriting. Cumbria County Council has a policy in place and it’s well thought through. But someone has ignored it and taken out the flora of the verge.
I have been posting images of the Ghyll Brow flora as they appeared, one by one. Later in the year I mean to show the diversity and beauty of what we've lost this summer.
Whoever did it was not interested in making the way safe for pedestrians because dead brambles reaching out into the road on the stretch by the Ghyll Brow houses had not been touched. There had been no attempt to clear up litter exposed by the cut. Keith Dunn who walks here daily was angry too. We locals who come this way often talk about the flowers.
I rang The Highways Agency, Cumbria County Council. David Huck spoke to his contractors who assured him this was not their work. We had a long chat about conservation of roadside verges and the constraints the Highways Agency must work with. Roads are colour coded and this stretch of Brigsteer Road should not be cut until September, giving seed time to set. The type of cut specified is appropriate to the ecology of the verge here, and it is more sensitive and considered.
So a maverick cut. Useless to speculate, the damage is done. But we’ve made our point and I’ve made a further contact. I’m asking how we can raise awareness, how we might try to protect the resource of the verge at Ghyll Brow.
Earlier this year I wrote a blog An Elegy for Ghyll Brow which you may find in the archive. But I didn’t see this coming. Several years ago the verge was subjected to a ferocious slashing that left jagged spikes of saplings jutting from the bank.
It is dispiriting. Cumbria County Council has a policy in place and it’s well thought through. But someone has ignored it and taken out the flora of the verge.
I have been posting images of the Ghyll Brow flora as they appeared, one by one. Later in the year I mean to show the diversity and beauty of what we've lost this summer.
RSS Feed