The Butts, Allerston:

July 2024

 

One of our aims was to identify some available space in Allerston suitable for our plans to improve wildlife in and around the village.

 

Allerston is a small linear village and other than the grass verges along Main Street, there are really only two small areas of land that are owned by the Parish Council, that would be immediately available.

 

We therefore decided to concentrate on one of these areas known as The Butts. It is at the top of the village, adjoining the A170 and had become completely overgrown until the villagers spent a lot of time and effort clearing it, and since then, the Parish Council has paid for the grass to be cut regularly. The Butts is roughly triangular, has three established trees and a substantial open grassed area and seemed ideal for our first project.

 

 

One of our members Jenny is a talented artist and painted an “artists impression” of what it could look like with a wildflower verge, some community fruit trees planted in the area where the established trees are, which would be consistent with the County Council’s vision to encourage the right to grow food on verges and community land, the planting of native spring bulbs such as daffodils underneath the established trees and an area for the planting of groups of pocket forests of native/naturalised species which would grow quickly, require less maintenance than standard hedging and be beneficial to wildlife. 

 

 

We approached the Parish Council with our plans and were pleased that they agreed in principle. We then had a meeting at The Butts with two Parish Councillors and Iain Summerson, the Asset Management Engineer with North Yorkshire Council, to discuss leaving part of the verge uncut until the end of the season.  It was agreed that only a 3m wide visibility strip adjacent to the A170 would be mown regularly and the remainder of the bank would be cut once a year, with the intention of creating a wildflower verge.

 

The 3m strip was marked out, the remaining wildflower verge has been left uncut and Mr Summerson has now been able to confirm that this area will be included with other nearby verges that he is arranging to be cut during late August/early September. After that we will decide whether to leave the wildflower verge to develop naturally or to plant some wildflower seeds in the spring of 2025.

 

Our next step is to buy 5 fruit trees and 1,500 native spring bulbs. We have some funds and are currently in discussion with our County Councillor in the hope of receiving a contribution from her £10,000 Locality Budget towards the cost of buying the trees and bulbs, with the intention of planting the bulbs in the autumn and the trees in the winter or the spring of 2025.

 

Please watch this space for further updates.