Environment and roads

Landscape, ecology and access

 

As custodian of over 10,000 acres of Hertfordshire countryside the County Council has an important role to play in balancing often conflicting demands for rural land use whether from sale of land for development, raising revenue, adding land to neighbouring farms to improve their viability, creating or improving natural habitat to assist the county’s biodiversity targets or increasing public access or informal recreation on land for local people. This juggling act is a key part of land agents’ daily work.

The very fact that the county owns large swathes of land in the green belt has been a big factor in preventing loss of farming units around many towns such as Borehamwood or Barnet. Together with other large landholders in these areas e.g. London boroughs of Enfield and Barnet, this has largely stopped the inexorable fragmentation and piecemeal sale of small plots which so often leads to undesirable land uses and subsequent protracted enforcement problems facing many Hertfordshire district and borough councils. It has also secured large swathes of countryside with a more traditional landscape of smaller fields and hedgerows supporting a rural economy of small family farming businesses.

 

 

The majority of woodlands across the Rural Estate continue to be actively managed. Key objectives of the Forestry Team are to enhance natural habitat, to provide public access wherever possible and to produce a small quantity of timber for sale. These three objectives are being achieved particularly in ancient semi-natural woods in the Watling Chase area near St Albans. Typical examples of the team’s work include opening up broad grassy rides to encourage butterflies and moths, undertaking regular small scale tree felling to produce as diverse and uneven aged woodland as possible which greatly improves habitat for birds and small mammals, and felling mature trees and converting timber using a mobile saw mill into posts and beams for use by the County Council on its Rights of Way network.

 

 

Field ponds were a traditional feature of Hertfordshire’s grasslands but through the 20th century the majority have been filled in or neglected. For over 10 years an ongoing project over the Estate has been to restore silted up ponds and water features, or to create new ones. The importance of small ponds to aquatic wildlife provides locally scarce refuge for frogs, toads, newts and damsel flies, insects that in turn provide a food source for birds including swallows, swifts and also bats. Other direct landscape improvements regularly carried out on the estate include the planting of many 100’s of metres of new hedgerow often carried out jointly with tenants themselves. Some of these hedges are now being managed by a traditional method of cutting and layering, with hazel stakes being sourced from the estate’s own woods.

 

 

Most farm tenants are very enthusiastic about works that benefit wildlife on their farms. A recent example has been a nest box project where each year estate staff manufacture and put up nest boxes on trees for birds of prey as well as for bats and more common farmland birds at Hertford Heath, Wall Hall and Kings Langley.

 

 

New woodland planting on appropriate blocks of land within the Watling Chase Community Forest area continues and most winters approximately 1,000 trees are planted. All new woodland is combined with open access. A recent example of this has been Arch Wood at Elstree which was planted in conjunction with the village primary school and incorporates a series of circular walks.

 

 

Over the last 20 years there has been a steady decline in numbers of farm livestock across Hertfordshire. The presence of livestock, cattle and sheep in particular is an essential part of the eco-system providing a food source for insects, birds and bat species. Although the Estate does not own any livestock itself, where land has faced being under grazed the County Council has carried out improvements to fencing, water supplies, gateways and field access etc to make grassland, for instance at Arkley, Elstree and Bushey, marginally more attractive to rent to the small number of graziers who are interested.

Parts of the Rural Estate are of particular importance for nature conservation and often these are directly leased to the Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust. This includes ancient semi-natural woodland at Potters Bar and Oughtonhead Woods at Hitchin.

The cost of carrying out habitat and conservation projects and maintaining woodlands etc is financed from farm rents or wherever possible grant aid is pursued from the Forestry Commission, DEFRA, Natural England or other sources.