Reserve: Blithfield

Please see attached Blithfield sightings for February - many thanks to Peter Betts for collating

As visitors will know and from conversations / posts below there have been some issues with access to the Forward and Stansley Wood hides.

SSW are undertaking staff training for platform / working from height to enable the replacement galvanised sheeting to be fitted. The Club has also taken UK Government guidance on bat box installations. A site meeting is set for the 16th of March to discuss / review / progress with the repairs. Further updates to follow. Apologies to members for the inconvenience but be assured we are working to close out the current issues. Feel free to make contact me with any questions regards Mark

I’m concerned about the new holiday homes/ residential buildings currently being constructed next to the Stansley Wood entrance gate. I assume they’ve got planning permission so a lot of the obvious disturbance issues have clearly already been overruled by now, but I am concerned that there is a path going straight from these buildings into the permit only area with no gate. If they are rented out for money, it’s likely that these will be marketed towards weekend dog walkers who won’t be in the area for long, will have little accountability and little information will be given to them in terms of access restrictions and rules. Are there any mitigations in place and has this been brought up with SSW? I don’t really see how it’s fair that anyone should have free access to the permit only zones unless they are working for SSW. Apologies if I’ve misunderstood anythin…

First a thank you to those members who flagged a failure on the roof of the Forward hide. As many members will know the club has purchased the galvanised sheeting and fixings for these to be upgraded as well as Bat boxes to ensure we manage roosts for any bats using the roof spaces

The failure of the roof has been flagged to SSW. Their guidance is as follows:

Hi Mark,

Thank you for your patience while we’ve been working through the recent issue.

We’ve had to temporarily close the Forward Hide and I will be closing the Stansley Wood Hide later this week as a precaution to ensure safety and compliance. Training is currently being procured to enable its safe reopening. At this stage, we don’t yet have a timeline for when the Hides will reopen, but we will keep you updated in due course as soon as we…