Surrey Road Verge Habitat Action Plan 2008-2013

Surrey Road Verge Habitat Action Plan 2008-2013

• Objectives
• Actions
• Appendices

This is the final draft. The Road Verge HAP has been adopted by the Surrey Biodiversity Partnership. It is still waiting to be adopted by Surrey Highways. (September 2009)

1. Introduction

Surrey contains a variety of rich habitats, from the chalk grasslands of the North Downs with their stunning mix of wildflowers, ancient woodlands, internationally important lowland heaths, and rivers and streams that cut steep sided ghylls through the Greensand Hills and Weald Clay. The County road network criss-crosses this diverse habitat, with the verges associated with this network reflecting the changing character and biodiversity of the surrounding landscape.

The biodiversity value of some road verges has long been recognised. A list of verges with the highest wildlife value is currently being reviewed. Verges on chalk along the A24 have been found to support over a hundred species of grasses and wildflowers. Protected species such as badgers, bats, invertebrates and many species of birds use verges for feeding, roosting and nesting. This biodiversity needs to be protected and enhanced for future generations. The soft estate that makes up road verges, such as grassland, trees, hedges, scrub, ditches makes a significant contribution to the green infrastructure of Surrey.

Verges are managed and maintained by highway contractors (term contractors) on behalf of Surrey County Council, in accordance with MaPS, the Manual of Policies and Standards. MaPS sets out the standards and maintenance requirements for the highway network.

This Road Verge Habitat Action Plan (RVHAP) aims to raise awareness of the biodiversity value of road verges within Surrey, and sets out how they can be managed to maintain their value. It will be relevant to all those that manage road verges including the highway authority, term contractors, parish councils, districts, utilities, and conservation groups.

It will also ensure Surrey County Council and all relevant public bodies fulfil its Biodiversity Duty under Section 40 of the NERC Act 2006. This states that: 'Every public authority must, in exercising its functions have regard, so far as is consistent with the proper exercise of those functions, to the purpose of conserving biodiversity'.

2. Summary

Road verges in Surrey are an important wildlife resource and support a wealth of plants and animals. Some of Surrey’s uncommon and rare species are represented on roadside verges. Road verges have significant potential to be improved for biodiversity, but their full value has not been properly assessed.

The Road Verge Habitat Action Plan sets out recommendations for:

• Identifying the extent, distribution and biodiversity value of road verges across the County
• Principles to be adopted for the survey, management and maintenance of verges
• Procedures to ensure Surrey County Council, as Highway Authority, meets its legal obligations in respect of species and habitats protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981) and other legislation
• Procedures to ensure effective communication between those involved in survey and monitoring and those responsible for the day to day management and maintenance of verges
• Opportunities for the involvement of partner organisations and local communities

Objectives, targets and actions set out in this document recognise the overriding constraint of highway safety.

3. The Surrey Biodiversity Action Plan

The Surrey BAP is made up of Habitat Action Plans and Species Action Plans. The HAPs considered of relevance are those that can occur on road verges in Surrey, and towards which the RVHAP can contribute. They are:

• Chalk Grassland (including chalk scrub)
• Lowland Heath (including acid grassland and bog)
• Lowland Unimproved Neutral and Dry Acid Grassland (meadows)
• Standing Open Water and Large Reedbeds
• Urban (Wildlife on your Doorstep)
• Woodland

Other HAPs that are likely to occur adjacent to the highway are:

• Wood Pasture and Parkland
• Floodplain Grazing Marsh
• Wetland (rivers and streams, fen, marsh, swamp and linear reedbed)
• Farmland (including hedgerows)

Each of the above HAPs includes specific objectives, targets and actions relevant to that habitat.

4. Biodiversity of Road Verges

The Highways Agency National Biodiversity Action Plan (2002), which deals with road verges associated with the national motorway and trunk road network (such as the A3, M23, M25, M3), notes that up to 40 per cent of priority habitats and 53 per cent of priority species from the UK national BAP are ‘known or likely to occur in verges’ (see Appendix IX for reference)

Some selected species associated with road verges in Surrey

Plants - characteristic	Invertebrates
Cowslip	Bumblebees
Primrose	Butterfly: Hedge brown / gatekeeper
Oxeye daisy	Butterfly: meadow brown
Commonknapweed	Stag beetle
Birdsfoot trefoil
	Amphibians and Reptiles
Plants - unusual	Frogs and toads
Tower mustard	Snakes
Copse bindweed	Common lizard and slow worm
Deptford pink
Greater chickweed	Birds
Devil's-bit scabious	Kestrel
Red-tipped cudweed
Orchids, included helleborines	Other
Chamomile	Veteran trees
Shepherd's needle	Mosses
Field mouse-ear	Lichens
Bur chervil
Wild daffodil

The Road Verge HAP working group selected this list during 2008. A more comprehensive list will be developed and will be added to this document as an appendix, and will be put onto the Surrey Biodiversity Partnership website.

Road verges offer the potential to support rich and varied populations of plants and animals. The characteristics and biodiversity value of the verges will be influenced directly and indirectly by a whole host of factors, including:

• Underlying geology and soils
• Local variations in topography and aspect (cutting slopes, embankments, central reserves, drainage, etc)
• Verge management and maintenance regimes
• Level of traffic use and other highway maintenance operations
• Highway improvement schemes providing opportunities for habitat creation
• Fertiliser and pesticide use in adjacent fields

Individual road verges may:

• Feature remnants of semi-natural habitat that have become increasingly rare within the wider Surrey landscape
• Provide important wildlife corridors that contribute to the overall network of species and habitats across the county
• Provide a valuable link for wildlife to move through urban and intensively farmed or otherwise featureless or sterile surroundings
• Provide a sanctuary for a wide range of plants and animals displaced from adjacent intensively managed and developed land. This may include nationally rare or protected species
• Provide shelter, nesting and breeding sites and an important source of food for a wide range of animals
• Border national and internationally important sites for nature conservation and provide an important buffer zone between the road and the adjoining protected land
• Provide opportunities for habitat enhancement or re-creation
• Provide permeable surfaces, especially important in urban areas to reduce run-off
• Contain hedgerows
• Feature notable or veteran trees

Many road corridors have verges of existing wildlife interest, or wildlife conservation potential. Some of these have already been identified by SCC and are valued by the community, but in many cases will go un-noticed. Areas of species rich grassland may be lost to scrub or cut at the wrong time of year, whilst old roadside hedges may become thin and gappy if not maintained correctly, resulting in less cover, shelter, and breeding sites for birds and animals.

Conservation Verges

The current list of conservation verges appears in Appendix IV. This list will be revised in line with the agreed criteria for designating conservation verges. The list will be updated regularly and kept in MaPS or equivalent and at the Biodiversity Information Centre, and will be published on the Surrey Biodiversity Partnership website.

5. Current Distribution and Status

There is currently no central, co-ordinated record of the biodiversity value of road verges in Surrey. Very few verges currently benefit from special protection, such as notification as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) because few verges will meet the criteria for notification, and there is a lack of survey information.

The Biodiversity Information Centre at the Surrey Wildlife Trust, the Surrey Botanical Society and other recording organisations hold information for a number of important verges, and in some cases full botanical species lists.

Other records may be held by different sections of Surrey County Council, including Local Highway Services, Environment and Regulatory Services and the Asset Management Group. The Term Maintenance Contractors, District and Parish Councils and local wildlife and community groups may also hold records. One of the principal objectives of this RVHAP will be to bring these records together, as part of a co-ordinated mapping and database system, organised by the Surrey Biodiversity Information Centre.

Verges provide refuge for a number plants and animals protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (as amended), Conservation (Natural Habitats, &c) Regulations 1994 (as amended) and associated legislation. Certain species, and in some cases their habitats, are protected against injury and disturbance. If it occurs it may be a criminal offence. In some cases protection can be seasonal, for instance the disturbance of nesting birds.

A small number of verges have been selected as Sites of Nature Conservation Importance (SNCIs). This gives limited protection to the verges from development under the relevant Local Development Framework Policies.

In rural areas, verges will often reflect the character and vegetation of the surrounding landscape. In urban areas, verges form ‘green’ corridors, which contribute significantly to the amenity value and environmental quality of residential areas, as well as acting as vital links for wildlife movement. Verges provide the setting for the highway, and often form the location for footpaths, cycleways and equestrian routes. New visitors to Surrey will often see the County for the first time from the road. Verges can be an important part of this first impression, reflecting the character of the local area, framing views and screening eyesores.

6. Factors affecting the habitat

The biodiversity value of road verges will be influenced by a range of activities associated with the use, operation and maintenance of the highway. Factors that can contribute to loss and decline in the biodiversity value of road verges nationally include:

Highway Improvements

• Inadvertent damage to habitats or impacts on protected species due to lack of survey data / local knowledge
• Road improvements and associated development such as road widening resulting in a reduction in the extent of the highway verge
• Conversion of soft verge to hard surface to provide footways / cycleways or reduce annual maintenance costs
• Landscape improvement designed to improve appearance or provide screening may result in the loss of semi natural habitat or result in soil enrichment, which encourages less desirable vigorous species
• Disturbance to vegetation and road verge habitats as a result of works such as cabling and poor re-instatement
• Inappropriate restoration and seeding of damaged / disturbed areas, including the use of ‘foreign’ strains of native species
• Inappropriate tree planting, particularly where carried out in areas of species rich grassland, and use of trees not indigenous to locality.

Traffic and Highway Management

• Dumping of spoil and storage of road materials such as road grit and salt
• Traffic accidents
• Pollution of roadside habitats from road run-off and traffic fumes
• Modification of roadside ditch systems and / or insensitive ditch maintenance
• Salt pollution / salt spray, which can prove toxic to many plants and can result in undesirable vegetation changes, including an increase in salt tolerant species such as Danish Scurvy-grass
• Road kill impact on migrating and mobile species
• Poor timing of works inadvertently leading to harm or loss of species, such as scrub removal during bird nesting season
• Storage of materials or machinery

Verge Management

• Use of pesticides / herbicides / growth retardants (including spillages or drift).
• Inappropriate timing, frequency and extent of grass cutting
• Flailing of vegetation to prevent overhang and blocking of sight lines
• Loss of grassland habitat due to invasion by scrub and trees
• Ditches silting up, which impedes efficient drainage
• Spread of injurious and noxious weed species on road verges. A list of these species appears in appendix VII
• An increase in undesirable or vigorous species such as hemlock, nettle, false oat-grass and cow parsley

Other Factors

• Runoff and drift from adjacent agricultural land
• Encroachment onto verge by adjacent landowners / land uses
• Unauthorised or inappropriate maintenance of road verges by adjacent land occupiers
• Unauthorised parking of vehicles on verges resulting in rutting and compaction
• Failure to identify designated verges before work takes place.
• Failure to consider presence of protected / rare species before work takes place
• Fly tipping
• Conflict of ideas about the management of unenclosed land that is managed as highway verge, but doesn’t belong to the County Council.

7. Importance to people / cultural significance

Verges associated with sunken lanes or those following the alignments of ancient routes, such as Roman roads, former drove roads or other routes of cultural importance are likely to have remained relatively undisturbed.

Verges are an important functional and aesthetic feature of the road network and one that local people will often value. Planting on road verges can provide valuable screening, and activities likely to impact on such planting’s are sometimes strongly opposed by local communities. Steep uncut verges and hedgerow boundaries to country lanes are as much a feature of the countryside as the surrounding woodland and farmland. A balance needs to be struck between the importance of roadside trees and the problems that trees can cause on structures such as embankments and cuttings.

Road verges on the approaches to towns and through villages provide important gateways. The local community can sometimes exert pressure on the highway authority to cut the grass or provide other improvements, such as bulb planting. However, the highway authority will resist this where there is a Conservation Verge, or if there is a potential loss of biodiversity. Some residents see the verge fronting their property as an extension of their garden, and will mow the grass and plant bulbs and non-native shrubs.

8. Current benefits to the community

Road verges provide an important functional, aesthetic, recreational and biological resource.

Functional

Verges provide screening and a buffer area between the road and surrounding landscape. Verges can be critical to lessening the impact of the road and associated structures, and can also assist with drainage to prevent flooding.

Aesthetic

Verges are essential to the character and appearance of the road. Management of verges will often reflect changes from urban to rural areas, for instance in relation to mowing regimes. Major highway approaches to towns and cities are seen as ‘Gateways’ and the character and maintenance of the road will often reflect this status. In rural areas verges can reflect local landscape and vegetation character, and contain important features such as veteran trees. Verges may be used to frame outward views or provide screening of features such as bridges.

Recreational

Verges provide safe access for pedestrians and may also include routes for cyclists and horse riders.

Biodiversity

Verges support a range of plants and animals, and can link wildlife areas by acting as a wildlife corridor. This can help to ensure the conservation and mobility of species.

9. Potential

Road verges have the potential to contribute significantly to the biodiversity resource of Surrey by offering opportunities for habitat protection, creation and enhancement. Road verges can be important corridors and can help to improve the connectivity of habitats within the surrounding landscape.

There is potential to get the community involved in monitoring and managing conservation verges as part of a community wildlife partnership, especially within the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Surrey County Council will be piloting a 'Parish Lengthsman Scheme' in a few Parishes in Surrey. Parish Councils will look after some aspects of road verge management that are not a priority for the County Council. An employee of the Parish Council, or a contractor can carry out this work, and volunteers can also be utilised. The Parish Council needs to have a licence to carry out the work, and the correct insurance and health and safety training.

The potential improvement of the biodiversity value of verges will be constrained by the need to maintain highway safety. It is essential that the HAP does not conflict with this overriding objective.

10. Current Action

Current action on the network has tended to be focused on individual routes or works at specific sites, as opposed to a co-ordinated strategy covering the whole County.

Several organisations, including the Surrey Botanical Society have been carrying out work on road verges for many years on an informal basis. Without this work a lot of species and knowledge would have been lost.

Blackwater Valley Route

A331/A31 Blackwater Valley Route (BVR): The Blackwater Valley Countryside Partnership manages about 86 hectares of amenity land along the Blackwater Valley, part of which is associated with the A331/A31 BVR. Much of the land was purchased as a direct result of the construction of the BVR and this is now a green corridor and nature reserve along the river valley. Hampshire County Council, Surrey County Council and the District, Borough and Town Councils of Blackwater and Hawley, Bracknell Forest, Farnham, Guildford, Hart, Rushmoor, Sandhurst, Surrey Heath, Waverley, Wokingham and Yateley all support the Blackwater Valley Countryside Partnership.

Road verges form an integral part of the mosaic of interconnecting habitats along the valley, which also includes large areas of woodland, water bodies and wetlands (from former sand and gravel workings). Survey, management and monitoring of the highway verges by the Blackwater Valley Countryside Partnership and Surrey Wildlife Trust in association with the highway authority and highway maintenance contractors are ongoing.

Green Corridor Action Plans

In an effort to guide the management of the landscape, in 2001 Surrey County Council commissioned a report entitled ‘The Sustainable Management of Surrey’s Highway Landscape’ (May 2001). One of the recommendations of the report was the development of Route Strategies, which the County has adopted as Green Corridor Action Plans. Plans have been prepared for four pilot study routes:

• A24 Givons Grove to County Boundary
• A319 St Peters Way
• B375 Chertsey Bridge to Gaston Bridge Road
• A31 Hog’s Back

Surrey Wildlife Trust has undertaken surveys of a number of verges throughout the County. Survey findings are held at the Biodiversity Information Centre.

Habitat and species protection measures have been built into many highway improvement schemes across the county. These include bat roosts in new structures, badger and other wildlife tunnels and major habitat creation initiatives such as those associated with the Blackwater Valley Scheme.

These initiatives have led to the introduction of sensitive management and other habitat improvements at a number of locations across the network.

• Targets
• Actions
• Appendices