Agenda item

To receive an update on the activities of the Strategic Access Management and Monitoring Project Team since the Board’s last meeting.

Ruth Shelton, Strategic Access Management and Monitoring (SAMM) Project Manager, Natural England, gave a presentation in respect of the work taking place as part of the SAMM project.  The presentation summarised the project team’s activities since the Board’s last meeting and included updates on staffing, warden activity, educational work and monitoring activity.

It was reported that of the six new seasonal wardens who had started with the SAMM project on 15^th March 2021 all had successfully completed their induction period and were making an excellent contribution to the SAMM team’s work.  Two year round wardens had been promoted, one had internally within Natural England and a second having moved to Berks, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust.   In order to fill the gaps in the year round team left by these promotions and provide both an element of functional support to the management team as well as opportunities for career progression to the wider team, it was proposed that one of the vacant year round warden posts be transformed into a Senior Warden. 

Although the creation of this new team structure would result in an increase in salary costs these would be mitigated by reducing the number of seasonal wardens recruited each year from seven to six. A situation which would reflect the situation on the ground in 2020 and 2021 when it had been possible to recruit only six seasonal wardens.

It was reported that Covid continued to impact on the work of the wardening team and current season of wardening would be delayed and run from 15^th March until 14^th September 2021.  Whilst the overall number of wardening hours completed since the last JSPB’s last meeting had been less than the same period in 2019; in April 2021, the first full month when wardens could resume activities, 615 hours of wardening activity had been completed compared to 592 hours in April 2019.

Scannable QR codes had been introduced on 19^th April 2021 and wardens were able to use these to provide visitors to the SANGs with additional information about the area they were in without the need to hand out leaflets.  It was hoped that as restrictions eased further wardens would be able to reintroduce guided walks and sessions for schools and community groups. 

Work to enhance the Partnership’s website and improve the digital content and printed materials had taken place over the winter and the SANG directory booklet had been refreshed and updated with new art work which would become the ‘branding’ for the TBH Special Protection Area.

The SAMM project’s educational offer had moved online with the delivery of fully interactive online sessions on a range of subjects including an introduction to the heathland and its wildlife and the threats faced by these habitats and what children might do to help protect the landscapes.  These online sessions are then supplemented with follow up work for children to complete in class.  A dedicated education page had been added to the TBH website which provides guidance, downloadable resources and activities which can be used to enhance learning and links had been made to encourage participation in a Citizen Science Project to capture sightings of the Silver Studded Blue Butterflies.  As restrictions eased, face to face outdoor sessions will be resumed in late June and bookings were now being taken.

In December 2020, the SAMM team launched the annual SANGs visitor survey.  In order to meet government restrictions the survey was conducted through the use of QR codes.  Up to the end of May 2021, a total of 575 replied had been received with Chantry Wood being the most visited SANG (38 responses), this was followed by Riverside NR (34 responses) and Timber Hill and Ottersaw Chase (31 responses).  The main activity being recorded on the SANG was dog walking (271 responses), walking (188 responses) and family outings (66 answers) with the majority of visits lasting between 30 minutes to an hour (317 responses).

The use of QR codes had enabled the visitor survey to take in a larger number of SANGS than in previous years (44 in 2020 compared to 7 in 2013) and gather a larger number of responses than had been possible with face to face surveys (575 responses compared to 216 in 2013).

It was questioned whether the pandemic was impacting on the distances that people were willing to travel to reach an area of green space and whether any changes were a temporary anomaly or part of a growing long tern trend.  It was agreed that this would be explored as part of future surveys.

RESOLVED that the staff structure changes proposed in paragraph 1.7 of the report be approved.