Nature-led minerals restoration to feature on BBC Countryfile

RSPB Ouse Fen at Hanson UK’s Needingworth Quarry will be featured on BBC 1 this weekend

NATURE After Minerals (NAM), the partnership programme led by the RSPB and supported by Natural England, the MPA and the BAA, is urging Agg-Net readers to watch out for coverage of RSPB Ouse Fen/Needingworth Quarry, in Cambridgeshire, on this Sunday’s Countryfile programme, which will be shown at 6.30pm on BBC 1.

As part of an ambitious working partnership between the RSPB and Hanson UK, this working sand and gravel quarry is gradually being restored to create the UK’s largest reed bed, to benefit birds such as the bittern, marsh harrier and bearded tit, as well as the otter and other specialist wetland habitat species.

In particular, the programme will look at how the site is being managed for nature and will feature the creation of fish sanctuaries.

NAM says it is looking forward to more people getting to hear about the huge benefits that nature-led minerals restoration can represent both for declining species and habitats, and for local communities up and down the country.

Once completed, the site at Needingworth will contain around 32km of public access paths. Located some 20 miles from the centre of Cambridge, this growing reserve will eventually allow people to escape the hustle and bustle of daily life and reconnect with nature close to home.

NAM will be paying a repeat visit to Ouse Fen in September 2018, with the running of a training course on the creation of reed beds for all interested minerals restoration stakeholders. Details of this and other NAM courses will be released imminently.