North Kent Woods & Downs Becomes a National Nature Reserve

We’re delighted to announce that the North Kent Woods and Downs is now an official National Nature Reserve (part of the prestigious King’s Series of NNR’s) and we played an important part in this fantastic project – carrying out the ancient and veteran tree assessment!

The reserve stretches from Gravesend to the Medway and contains diverse habitats, including ancient woodlands, rare arable plants, and ancient and veteran trees.  These habitats support a wide range of species, such as rare beetles, bats, delicate lichens, fungi, wildflower meadows, pollinators, chalk grasslands, butterflies, and skylarks.

Treework Environmental Practice has a long-standing reputation for knowledge and expertise in ancient and veteran tree which has been supported by our structured training and mentoring and our team’s deep knowledge in this area, including involvement with the Ancient Tree Forum (ATF) since its inception, team members currently on the ATF’s Advisory Panel, VetCERT accredited consultants, and Neville Fay’s production of the Specialist Survey Method, as well as long study across the team of tree morphophysiology and decades of experience of both assessing and monitoring ancient trees and veteran trees. Having such extensive experience from a range of industry leading experts meant that we were able to collect and analyse a lot of key data and summarise it in a format that provided vital evidence to support this significant new designation.

Treework Principal Arboricultural Consultant and Project Manager Matt Searle said:
“It’s been such a privilege to have played a part in this exciting new National Nature Reserves designation.  Leading a team of seven veteran tree specialists, recording 1400 trees, each tree with its own management plan has been an incredible experience.  A special thanks to Mike Phillips of White Horse Ecology Ltd for giving us the opportunity. We look forward to working with the partners into the future.”

This new NNR has been made possible with support from National Highways and the reserve is managed by a partnership to preserve its beauty and biodiversity.

Our team was proud to work with a wide range of partners, including the National Trust, The Woodland Trust, Forestry England, Plantlife Biotech, Tarmac, MDVC, Kent County Council, Gravesham Borough Council and others.

This big step forward for the region will improve access to nature for people, to more than 20km2 of the beautiful North Downs.

The official Kent Downs National Landscape video on the NNR can be seen here: https://lnkd.in/eMKdxHbS