Askham Bryan Agricultural College Students Present Designs and Plans for Site

The Society counts itself very fortunate in having such a large and delightful site but it does recognise that ownership comes with some responsibility to maintain and improve the ecological environment whilst developing the facilities for the benefit of the members.

Being largely covered in woodland, albeit mainly self-sown birch trees, the Society has to be sensitive in proposing developments. Besides the desire of the members to maintain the ecology, there are local and planning issues in any development on the site.

The site does have the potential to be improved ecologically by planting a wider variety of native hardwood trees and by sowing meadow and woodland plants in place of the luxuriant nettle growth under the tree canopy.

The Society counts itself doubly fortunate to have had the help of Askham Bryan Agricultural College over the last two years in drawing up plans to both maintain and develop the site.

Two groups of students under the direction of their course tutors have been busy surveying, taking soil samples and producing plans.  Both groups have completed their work. The landscape group drew up plans to develop the site sympathetically and these were presented in late spring last year. The other group, the arboriculturists, were looking at how the Society could maintain and improve the woodland, and they reported in the autumn. The woodland management plan included advice on new tree planting but the priority need was to remove as many as 90 trees which were indentified as diseased or in danger of falling.

After consultation with the City's Environment Officer the identifed trees have been felled.

As much timber as possible has been retained to be recycled in making outdoor furniture and fencing.

The removal of the trees has opened up the site and one of the first results has been the appearance of many new wildflowers and other woodland plants. The more open aspect of the site should encourage more insects and bird speci to inhabit the area.

As well as tree removal, coppicing has been carried out - one of the aims being to encourage smaller trees to develop to give a more varied height to the woodland. This will encourage nesting birds. A more specific aim is to establish a colony of white-letter hair streak butterflies in a group of approximatley 100 elms. The majority of these elms are small and so are free from the Dutch Elm Bark Beetle. A few of the larger elms are dead and will be removed where possible and the dozen or so living elms with trunks greater than six inches in diameter are to be coppiced. Further coppicing will be carried out at regular intervals in the future.

The first group of students consulted with the Society on what might be desirable to enhance facilities and have tried to incorporate ideas such as club house extensions, boating and or wildlife ponds, woodland walkways, traction engine routes and ground level track enhancements such as footbridge and a signal box.

The Society is making full use of the plans and has already consulted the city planners on the possible implementation of the main features of the plans.

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Club Archive on DVD

Club Member, Paul Butler, has produced a two disc DVD pack containing footage and stills recording the club’s activities. This is the first of two packs. Paul intended to produce a single disc but discovered a real treasure trove of footage and has decided to produce the DVD in two separate issues.

The first records the early years of the Society up to about 1980. Although the second issue will only cover from 1980 to the present, there is so much film and video available as well as hundreds of still photographs that Paul has much more material to dip into than for the whole of the first fifty years.

Visitors to the Society’s stand at Harrogate may have seen a pre-view of the DVDs which will be available for £8 from Paul.

Paul has not only used the Society footage but has used other local archive material too to tell the story.

Paul tells us that he has made a start on Part 2 so watch this space.

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New Editor

Newsletter Editor is one of those jobs that can produce a frustrating lack of response when there is an appeal to fill a vacancy. Many folks are very reticent to even put pen to paper and contribute an article never mind taking on the editorship of a club newsletter. So it was a very pleasant surprise for the management committee when Andy Nuttall volunteered to take on the job so soon after Ken Bateman decided to relinquish his hold on the editorial keyboard.

Andy confessed that he had had no previous experience but the issues produced so far show that he has a natural talent for the job and many members have made favourable comments on the quality of his first publications. Now that he is into his second year, it is evident that Andy has found his forte.
We look forward to many more issues of the newsletter under his editorship.

Andy can be contacted at news@yorksme.org.uk

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