Tarmac host biggest-ever Festival of Wildlife

Three thousand visitors celebrate the wealth of biodiversity at Tarmac’s Panshanger Park site

AROUND 3,000 people visited Tarmac’s Panshanger Park recently for the annual Festival of Wildlife, to celebrate the rich biodiversity found in Hertfordshire and Middlesex.

The free event, delivered by the Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust, in partnership with The Hertfordshire Natural History Society and Tarmac, offered guided walks and expert talks as well as a range of conservation activities.

Stuart Wykes, director of land and natural resources at Tarmac, said: ‘We were delighted to support Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust and The Hertfordshire Natural History Society in delivering this fantastic event.

‘We are proud of our stewardship of the park and the carefully planned, award-winning restoration to agriculture, wetland and nature conservation, which is still being delivered through the final stages of gravel extraction, and hope that visitors over the weekend enjoyed the beautiful surroundings of the park and will visit again soon.’

Panshanger Park is an active quarry site and visitors were offered the rare chance to take a ‘Lifecycle of a Quarry’ tractor tour, organized by Tarmac. The tour showed the active quarry site and then moved on to reveal the outstanding restoration of past quarry sites and the array of wildlife now thriving there.

Lesley Davies, chief executive of Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust, said: ‘We had a fantastic weekend at The Festival of Wildlife. We were thrilled to see visitor numbers double from last year and welcome so many new faces to the event.

‘The Festival has hugely grown in success and we couldn’t have done it without our amazing volunteers, our partners The Hertfordshire Natural History Society, and kind hosting from Tarmac.’