Enhancing the Valley for wildlife and informal recreation
A project page has been added to the website. It is a page for anyone interested in publishing modest sized projects on aspects of the Valley e.g. the wildflowers to be found on Eaton Common. The first project to appear is a School Community Project by Jamie Kidd. It features the display boards to be found in the Valley on the UEA campus and on Marston Marsh.
The path in Cringleford Meadow has long been muddy and difficult in times of bad weather. Both the path and the carpark are having their surfaces improved by laying compacted hardcore. The new all-weather path surface should make it easier to stay on the path and avoid trampling the vegetation in attempts to bypass the mud.
The Meadow will be closed from Monday 16th May for 8 weeks. On site notices give the diversion details. YVS understands the contractor will enable evening and weekend pedestrian access to the riverside path when and where safe to do so.
The full works comprise improvements to the path surface of the existing Yare Valley Walk alongside the river between Cringleford Meadow Car Park and the footbridge just north of the A11 flyover. The car park will also receive improvements with a gravel filled plastic grid system, similar to that at Danby Wood carpark, to regularise the surface and make the car park easier to use.
One of the alternative routes uses the not so widely known path alongside the flyover that was brought into being as part of the McCarthy and Stone development.
An economics student at the University of East Anglia, as part of her dissertation, is investigating the usage of greenspace and parks in Norwich and how these are related to health outcomes and attitudes of Norwich residents.
“There is considerable evidence that usage of and access to green spaces can significantly improve health outcomes in the population. However, throughout the UK, studies have shown that green space is unequally distributed. There is limited research investigating the actual usage of green spaces and how it varies across different urban areas. I hope to help investigate this with my dissertation and see how changes could be made to benefit the Norwich population.”
You can help by responding to her survey here. The survey has been approved by UEA ethics committee, it does not collect identifying information, and data responses will be stored securely online to meet GDPR and will be destroyed after the project is completed.
Sweet Briar Marshes Appeal
Norfolk Wildlife Trust has launched an appeal for funds to purchase and manage Sweet Briar Marshes (36.6 hectare) in the Wensum Valley green corridor.
The Wensum green corridor, in common with the Yare Valley green corridor, is threatened by the surrounding urban development, and the purchase of the marshes by NWT would be a valuable contribution to safeguarding the future of the corridor. The Wensum joins the Yare at Whitlingham.
“Close to the heart of Norwich lies Sweet Briar Marshes: 90 acres of fen, rough meadow, grazing marsh, old hedgerows and young woodland. This mosaic of habitats, unusually for a city centre, was arable farmland until as recently as the late 1990s, and today provides a treasure trove of nature, wildness and peace.
But this uniquely wild place is increasingly surrounded by urban development, and its sensitive ecology – including a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) – is in danger of being lost forever…
Today, with the chance to secure the land, restore its biodiversity, and enhance it for people and wildlife alike, we have the remarkable opportunity to rewrite the story of Sweet Briar Marshes.
We want to create A Wilder Norwich For All with Sweet Briar at its centre an urban green space that is both rich in wildlife and enriching to the lives of the communities it serves; accessible to and valued by all the species who share it.”
More about the appeal is here and there are also some FAQs. The appeal is for £600,000 and Aviva has offered to match £ for £ every donation up to £300,000.
The Strawberry Field is on the Bluebell Road next to the McCarthy and Stone site. It has now had its end of year cut, but for wildflowers to prosper the cuttings need to be removed.
Matt Tomlinson is organizing another working party to remove cuttings from at least part of the field. He writes:
“I plan to lead a work party to clear the clippings from the very top of the field and dispose of them under the hedge at the top of strawberry field and under the hedge at the top of the donkey sanctuary (we have permission from the UEA). This area is the richest and certainly the most diverse, for plants, on the field.
If you are free anytime on Saturday the 16th October from 10am (I will be down all day) it would be great to see you and any help is very much appreciated.
Please bring a rake and or fork.
It is forecast to be a nice sunny autumn day on Saturday”
Please come along if you can and help get the job done.
The Yare Valley Society has received the following request from Matthew Tomlinson
“Help needed to pull ragwort on Strawberry Field (Eaton, NR4 7LE) on Saturday the 17th of July at 10am. We are working with the landowner to change the way the field is managed, allowing us to treat it as a hay meadow and convert the site into an amazing 8 acre community wildflower meadow. It has been left uncut this year and a large number of bee orchids have popped up, along with a few pyramidal orchids and a huge amount of insect life. Please bring gloves and long-sleeved tops.”
Matthew is working with the landowner and the owners of the adjoining donkey field to get the fields management changed to turn it into a wildflower meadow. He has had good local support and hopes to do a moth trapping night over the summer. The ragwort is being pulled as an alternative to cutting the field which would kill any cinnabar moth caterpillars present. When the ragwort is pulled, any caterpillars on it will be transferred to plants off-field.
Warning. Ragwort is a highly toxic plant, and there is evidence that it can affect humans. Any pulling of the plant should be done wearing protective gloves, and although it may seem a fun activity for children, it is perhaps not wise to involve them.
If you have a special tool for the job e,g. a lazy dog weed remover please bring it with you. It is probably more effective for long term eradication.
We all enjoy our slow ways in the Valley, but a new project involving large scale collaboration aims to create a national network of “Slow Ways”. “A Slow Way is a route for walking (or wheeling) between neighbouring cities, towns and villages, using a variety of existing paths, ways, trails and roads.”
Slow Ways from Norwich cross the Yare at Cringleford, Harford and Lakenham Bridges, but only one route, Norwich-Mulbarton, passes along part of the Valley. It uses the Bridleway from the Mulbarton Road across to Keswick Mill, before turning south west to head past Keswick Hall, to picking up the Bridleway beside the Southern Bypass across to Intwood Road.
Cringleford Bridge has been a popular place for some young people to take a jump into the river. This is not a practice to encourage, and a recent underwater exploration has revealed some of the hidden dangers.
A team of scuba divers, limited in their activities by the lockdown, ventured into the depths of the river Yare below the bridge and over a few hours successfully retrieved eight shopping trolleys, three bicycles, a single bed frame, two road traffic cones and an assortment of metal and scaffolding poles. The team reported that their haul was only a quarter of the rubbish in the river, and that the river bed was strewn with rubbish.
Some of the objects were at a depth of only two metres and so could present a serious hazard to anyone entering the water unwarily.
A big thank you to the diving team for bringing this hazard to the attention of the public, and for their work on improving the river environment. Pictures and more about their work can be found here.
The “Strawberry Field” is between Bluebell Road and the river, near to the McCarthy and Stone housing development (previously the Bartram Mowers site).
After recent closures for works, the Riverside Walk below the Strawberry Field is now open with a much-improved surface, and the restoration and extension of a section of the boardwalk to create a link to a new path in the Strawberry Field.
Early in November, volunteers of Norwich Fringe Countryside Management Project will be installing interpretation boards and way marker signs for the new Strawberry Fields Open Space. Interested in volunteering to work in the Project? Details Fringe Project activities are on their website.
There is a continuing management programme for improving the meadow-land of the strawberry field.