A CONSERVATION group has won its second national award within a year for transforming land owned by the Highways Agency beside the A30 at South Tawton.

Volunteers from Sticklepath and Okehampton Conservation (StOC) have worked with contractors Kier to improve the flora and fauna of the plot by the roadside at Blackhall Farm.

The work involved hedge laying, cutting back holly and willow and providing better habitats for dormice, bees and other species to increase the biodiversity of the area.

They have also transformed the grassland on the reserve from species poor to species rich, with cowslips now thriving under the new maintenance regime

The group’s efforts have secured them the Maintenance and Management Award at the Big Biodiversity Challenge Awards 2017, organised by the Construction Industry Research Information Association (CIRIA).

Ged Fitzgibbon from StOC said: ‘We got immense satisfaction from doing the work. Creating the willow hedge was a bit unusual, and one of the guys is an expert in dormice, he’s got a PhD in dormice so we did some work on helping dormice, in the woods, so that was a bit unusual too.

‘We also take on people with learning difficulties and they benefit from getting out in nature, socialising with people and doing a bit of work. They have been involved with this project.’

The conservation society stepped in to help Kier, which manages the land owned by the Highways Agency, after a survey revealed that the neglected plot had huge potential.

Before the volunteers from StOC joined forces with Kier’s in-house ecologists, the plot by the main road was in poor condition. The grassland was species-poor and starting to scrub over, the woodland was overgrown and there was no wetland.

The volunteers have worked regularly on the reserve, laying new hedges, coppicing the woodland and created a new wetland on the 1.5 hectare plot which is half grassland and half woodland.

Kier sponsored the project, with their staff volunteering to help work on the reserve on days out from their normal working week. The only financial outlay was the hire of a mini digger and materials to create the wetland, at a cost of £1,400.

This is the second award that the conservation society has received this year. Earlier in the year it was presented with a magnificent barn owl trophy for winning the prestigious Gordon Millar Ward, given by the Countryside Management Association for an outstanding contribution to countryside management.

They were nominated for the award by Dartmoor ranger Ian Brooker in recognition of their work on nature reserves in the Sticklepath area.