St Asaph Business Park staff have helped lay the foundation for a bustling new nature reserve right on their doorstep.
Qioptic staff recently travelled down the road to take a look at the Green Gates Nature Reserve Development and lend a helping hand to creating new woodland areas on the site.
This is part of the ongoing works to create a 70- acre nature reserve at Green Gates, St Asaph, to support and enhance local biodiversity.
The trees have been grown from locally sourced seeds in the county at the Council’s local provenance tree nursery located at Green Gates.
Species going on to the new nature reserve include Oak, Alder, Willow, Silver Birch, along with some of the rarer Wild Service and Spindle.
Ten volunteers from Qioptic, joined others from Working Denbighshire and the tree nursery’s own volunteer community to plant over 500 trees.
Cllr Barry Mellor, Lead Member for Environment and Transport said, “We are really pleased that local staff members from Qioptic have helped plant the roots of what will be a fantastic asset for local nature right on their own working doorstep. Its fantastic to get such great local support for this site which will do so much for protecting our nature going forward.”
The Green Gates Nature Reserve development is part of the Council’s response to protect and restore local nature habitats to contribute to the nature recovery goal.
Other work ongoing at the site will see existing ponds restored, the creation of new ponds, the development of a wetland area adjacent to two small watercourses and creation of woodland, scrub and grassland habitat areas.
A new brownfield site will be created to help support a range of rare and important wildlife – such as insects and wildflowers, and a new wildlife barn s under construction to support roosting bats and nesting birds. The site has also been identified by Natural Resources Wales as a potential Site of Special Scientific Interest for great crested newts.
An accessible permissive pathway will be created to allow local residents to visit the site and a raised viewing area will also be developed.
This work is funded by UK Government grant funding. Additional funding has also been provided from Denbighshire’s Climate and Nature Recovery Programme. Work at the tree nursery I supported by the Welsh Government, through the Local Nature Partnerships Cymru ENRaW project.