The Lea Brook Valley - future plans

Work in the valley over the next few years will focus on making it even better for local wildlife and more enjoyable for visitors. There are also plans to improve the flood control value of the balancing pond in the Gosforth Valley.

Read on to find out more about some of our plans.

A wildflower meadow          

Thanks to a generous gift of seeds from Tony Marron, the original Lea Brook visionary, and lots of help from Dronfield Town Council, we will soon have 525 m² of wildflower meadow. This will be blue with Cornflowers in 2009, and even more colourful from 2010. This will be a great step forward, but will need careful management for it to be successful.

A wildlife garden

Dronfield Town Council has been bequeathed about 1,200 m² of land alongside the valley. This was once a beautiful garden, but because of neglect, its beauty has faded. We aim to put some beauty back by creating a wildlife garden complete with picnic tables so that people can enjoy the garden’s birds, butterflies, colours, fragrances, textures…

A new pond

A job for volunteers in 2009! The new pond will be at the bottom of the valley and should be great for wildlife – it might even bring in some species that haven’t been recorded here before.

Improving the visitor experience

Our medium-term plan includes improved way-marking and some impressive interpretation boards to help visitors appreciate the site’s history and wildlife, as well as giving credit to the project’s many partners. In the meantime, we’ll be using some temporary interpretation boards as a stop-gap. There will be more benches, view-points and paths, and a new leaflet for the site too.

A new bird table

This may not sound like a major project but this is a bird table with a difference. A local tree surgeon will be helping us out by turning a felled tree into an attractive bird feeding station, complete with a step cut out of the trunk so that we can reach the table to restock it. We also hope to install a CCTV link from a different bird feeding station to monitors in the junior schools at each end of the valley, and probably to the library or town council building too. This will take the project to the local community in a new way, enabling them to enjoy the valley without even visiting it! We hope they’ll visit too though.

Ivy management

Ivy is a great plant for wildlife but in some parts of the site there is just too much of it. One of our jobs is to make sure it’s not taking over where it’s not wanted.

Working with trees

We need to get some pruning done to prevent any further damage to the west bank. We will also be planting trees to help control Himalayan Balsam. This is an alien species and is a problem in the valley. We will plant trees to shade it out - hopefully, this will be an innovative and effective solution, albeit a labour intensive one.

A sustainable wetland area

There’s still some talking to do, but our hope is that the landowners will allow us to care for the wetland at the top of the valley, under the guidance of the town council. This is an important area for biodiversity and would be an exciting addition to our workplan.

Recycling Bins

Good news! Following complaints from the local community we have successfully negotiated the repositioning of the existing bins in the car park and one-way traffic flow via new road markings.

For more information, or to get actively involved in this project, contact Norman Crowson (norman.crowson@arocha.org).