3rd November 2024
South Oxfordshire District Council has helped create the first habitat bank in the district aiming to increase biodiversity and reduce river pollution while also allowing necessary development.
16.5 acres off Windmill Lane, Towersey has been transformed from intensively farmed arable land to a biodiverse mosaic of grassland, scrub, and woodland habitats, which will provide a haven for pollinators such as bees and butterflies, mammals including water voles and birds such as curlews and barn owls.
The new habitat bank will provide a stable income for the landowner through biodiversity net gain, making the rest of their farm business more resilient in the face of a changing climate.
The owner of the land at Towersey first heard about biodiversity net gain – where developers buy biodiversity credits from habitat banks to offset building works – when they attended the farm innovation show in 2022. They then worked with the environmental charity Trust for Oxfordshire’s Environment (TOE) to develop the project and liaise with the council as the local planning authority.
The site is next to the Thame Valley Conservation Target Area, a strategically valuable area for nature recovery. Over the coming decades, the land will be managed to allow wildflowers to bloom and set seed in the summer, with an annual hay cut in the autumn. This will create habitat and food for a host of wildlife species in an arable-dominated landscape.
By removing the land from intensive agricultural production, fewer chemicals from pesticides and fertiliser and less sediment will run into the Cuttle Brook that runs on the northern border of the site, improving the health of one of the River Thame’s main tributaries.
