Lafarge Cement helping to protect hay meadows

Hope Works joins with Peak District National Park Authority to conserve and enhance hay meadows

LAFARGE Cement UK’s Hope Works has joined with the Peak District National Park Authority (PDNPA) to help draw attention to the national decline in biodiversity-rich hay meadow habitats in the UK.

Working with the PDNPA’s Rebekah Newman, the company recently hosted a walk around the boundary of its Hope Works and through the Bradwell hay meadows. The walk particularly highlighted an area known as South Lee, which has been protected and enhanced to a point where it is heading for designation as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

‘Hay meadows are recognized as being the most threatened habitat in the Peak District,’ explained Rebekah Newman. ‘Studies have shown that 75% of our species-rich meadows had either been lost or had declined significantly in value between the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s. Nationally, flower-rich grasslands (hay meadows) are recognized as having declined by 97% between the 1930s and the mid-1980s.

‘In order to redress this issue, restoration of species-poor sites to flower-rich meadows is necessary through the adoption of traditional hay meadow management and the application of local hay meadow seed. Working through a conservation agreement with landowners Lafarge and the farmer, we have worked hard to enhance the Bradwell hay meadows and particularly South Lee.’

Lafarge Hope Works manager Ashley Bryan added: ‘Outside of our normal cement-making operation, we work all year round to restore land and where possible enhance biodiversity in the area around the works. A constructive partnership between Lafarge, the PDNPA and English Nature has enabled us to be part of the Peak District Biodiversity Action Plan and its work on hay meadows.

‘We hope this area continues to grow in terms of importance as a habitat and hope South Lee encourages more landowners and farmers to get involved in hay meadow conservation.’