COLUMN: Horsham District Council add Bramber Brooks to collective efforts for nature recovery

By Cllr Colette Blackburn as printed in the Thursday, 19 October 2023, print edition of the West Sussex County Times

At Horsham District Council, we know that our residents feel strongly about the declining state of nature in the UK.  Our West Sussex countryside is very important to local people who want to see the landscape protected and the rivers cleaned up.

As part of our strategy to protect and enhance our natural world, the Council is in the process of buying Bramber Brooks, a private nature reserve, community orchard and popular dog walking spot in Bramber.  The site spans 34 acres and is used regularly by the community including local schools and scout troops.  The purchase will mean that these activities can continue and that the space is secured for the future.  Additionally, hand in hand with this, acquiring this land gives us the opportunity to help improve conditions for nature recovery in Horsham District.

Some readers will have noticed a weakening of environmental resolve from Westminster over the past few weeks.  These coincided glaringly with a new State of Nature report from the RSPB which confirmed that the decline of nature in the UK is continuing. 1,500 species are now at risk of extinction and there is a real possibility of losing 43% of our birds, 31% of amphibians, 28% of fungi, and 26% of land mammals (including turtle doves and water voles).  Plants are disappearing too including more than half of flowering plants such as heather.  The report also follows a startling statement from the National Trust in June that we are now one of the 10% most nature depleted countries in the world.

As ever, in Horsham District, our communities are already working to stop the decline and start the recovery. Horsham Green Spaces has mapped five out of seven flyways that identify pollinator routes around our District.  This group is also completing important habitat mapping training sessions and, along with other community groups, is keeping records of species in specific locations.  The point of these activities is to help ensure that wildlife is able to travel easily along natural corridors to breeding and feeding sites that are located in different places.  It is when these become disconnected and wildlife cannot travel from one to the other that species die out.  At Wilder Horsham District, the partnership between the Council and the Sussex Wildlife Trust, large numbers of trained volunteers are helping landowners to improve land conditions and buffer wildlife corridors, and the partnership is also collaborating, enabling and advising on the River Adur restoration project.  Not least, of course, we have a globally renowned rewilding project in the middle of our district, at Knepp, where experts are working with landowners to create the impressive Weald to Waves wildlife corridor.

Our acquisition of Bramber Brooks will help us to enable more of this recovery as well as to allow continued public use of the area.  The Environment Agency has committed £250,000 to enhance the nature reserve there in order to create better conditions for birds and other species.  We plan to also utilise our in-house expertise, learning and specialist practices from some of our other public spaces such as Warnham Local Nature Reserve and Chesworth Farm.  The improvements planned for Bramber Brooks include the introduction of seasonal cattle grazing, thistle and bramble scrub control, formal rights of way improvements and better signage, as well as new bird scrapes and wetland areas.  Importantly, we will also be delivering improvements to habitats and wildlife along the River Adur as part of our ambitious river recovery project. 

It is essential to remember that the decline of nature across our country and District can be stopped.  The situation is bad but not hopeless and we are not helpless.  Most people will be able to do something to encourage better biodiversity and species recovery.  Bird boxes on homes and other buildings, wildlife friendly gardens, and record keeping of species seen, are all examples of how anyone can get involved.  If we can make it work here in Horsham, we can demonstrate, further afield, the stunning effectiveness of small actions taken by large numbers of people.  At Horsham District Council, we are very glad indeed to add Bramber Brooks to collective efforts for nature recovery whilst also retaining a much- loved public space for residents.