The Council obtained £10,000 from the developer at Lostock Triangle under Section 106 of the planning act, so that FoAM could undertake work at Dairy House Meadows in mitigation for the loss of lapwing habitat at Lostock.
We considered digging scrapes using conventional digging machinery, but decided to adopt best practice and use a rotary ditcher which is owned by RSPB. This machine has been used successfully to create scrapes at many of their sites.
A big advantage of hiring the RSPB’s machine is that the soil removed by the cutter is thrown and spread thinly away from the ditch being cut. In this way, a lot of work dealing with the clumps of soil which would be created by conventional machines is eliminated. The ditcher is laser-levelled to give an accurate depth of excavation and has adjustable cutting blades to create the ditch edge profile.
The scrapes were dug in August 2018. During wet weather, the shallow scrapes fill with water and slowly dry out to provide muddy margins beneficial to wildlife.
The final stage of the project was to fence the existing pond adjacent to the path and install a nose pump for cattle to be able to drink without entering the pond.
The scrapes will improve habitat for frogs, toads and newts as well as encouraging wading birds to breed.