The principal aims of the project is to improve wildlife linkages and create stepping stones spreading out from existing areas of wildlife habitat in the target area. The project area is roughly a triangle between the A52, A46 and A606 and therefore Cotgrave Forest forms a major habitat feature in the area.

The Project is seeking to promote existing habitats such as hedgerows, headlands and green lanes, as well as creating new stepping stones, such as woodland copses and field margins. These will assist the movement of less mobile species such as small mammals, invertebrates and plants, around the area, as well as providing additional habitat in themselves.

So we are looking at farmland links between Cotgrave Forest and Roehoe Wood, Cotgrave Country Park and Cotgrave village edge woodlands and out towards Wheatcroft Wood and Dewberry Hill. And hope that by encouraging small changes that add up, we can create these stepping stones and connections for wildlife at a landscape scale.

But the Project is also interested in promoting sympathetic wildlife management within the woodland. because it is an important habitat in it`s own right, supporting a diverse range of local species and also the locally rare Purple Emperor and White Tailed Fritillary butterflies.

Gordon Dyne – Rushcliffe Nature Conservation Strategy Implementation Group (RNCSIG)