30-year nature restoration project planned at Bucks border

The site is designed to form a wildlife corridor connecting nearby habitats.

The project on around 95 acres of farmland at Old Linslade will see lost hedgerows, a traditional orchard and native wildlife return to the site. 

It will be led by specialist ecologists from Naturum, who help developers with biodiversity net gain (BNG) solutions.

The land, which straddles the border between Central Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire and is just a mile from Leighton Buzzard's centre. It also sits within 2km of seven designated wildlife sites, including two Sites of Special Scientific Interest and Naturum plan to use the project to create a wildlife corridor between the locations. 

Naturum say years of "intensive farming" have altered the land's historic profile, with removed hedgerows causing lost nutrients for soil. They plan to reinstate these hedgerows, alongside wildflower-rich grassland, a traditional orchard and mixed scrub.

With these improvements, they hope to benefit badgers, bats, amphibians, farmland bird and declining moths and butterflies. They say their plans also build on priorities identified in the Bedfordshire Local Nature Recovery Strategy. 

The land will then be managed by a local contractor, with educational boards planned for the site and wildlife surveys to be carried out twice a year. 

Anthony Binnie, co-founder of Naturum, said:

"For centuries this land was a patchwork of small fields and hedgerows. Today, those hedgerows have all gone, and with them much of the wildlife that relied on them. 

"Over the next 30 years, these fields will become wildflower grassland, scrub and orchard, giving skylarks, lapwings, bats and butterflies like the brown hairstreak the food and shelter they need to thrive here again.

"Old Linslade is a special place, with its historic church and the Ouzel water meadows on its doorstep. We want families, walkers and schoolchildren to come and watch the land change through the seasons and feel proud of what's happening on the edge of their town."