Trust for Oxfordshire’s Environment had the pleasure of visiting an exciting and inspiring habitat restoration project on May 22nd. Work begun this month on an ambitious floodplain meadow restoration project, taking arable land along the River Evenlode back to historic riverside floodplain meadow.
The project is the vision of the landowner Brad Wickens who is passionate about restoring the landscape to a pre-arable state, including a full transition of natural and native habitats from the river, across the floodplain and up valley sides. The project design works with natural processes, using existing topography and existing sources of water to develop the most sustainable and naturally functioning landscape system as possible, that can adapt and evolve with long term climatic and landscape changes.
Expansion of existing pond
Scrape created less than 24 hours before
New pond being fed by historic field drains