On the Verge
Tues 9th Aug, 7pm: Greenhead.
Meet by Greenhead Church.
Please join us for a short verge walk (1.5 miles there and back max) to survey the road verge for plants. Just turn up, no need to book and no experience required. We'll be on tarmac (most of the time) and aim to finish by 9pm. Any queries, please get in touch with Lesley Silvera, 01434 607988.

The Value of Verges
Our open meeting held in Hexham on 20th July was very successful with over 30 people attending. The speakers were John Richards, Newcastle University Emeritus Professor of Botany; Rebecca Barrett, North Pennines AONB biodiversity officer; Gill Thompson, Northumberland National Park ecologist; Steve Lowe of Northumberland Wildlife Trust; and Sam Talbot, green spaces officer for Northumberland County Council.

Speakers reported on the activities of their respective organisations to improve road verge, grassland and hay meadow management, while STS members described their efforts to survey plant diversity on local road verges. Jo Aris reported on STS's meeting with A69 managers, RoadLink, who declined our invitation to speak at this public meeting. RoadLink, Jo said, seemed to justify extensive herbicide use and frequent cutting on grounds of safety, for road users and their staff, ruling out alternative management practices as these would increase costs. However the points we made evidently hit home.
On July 19th STS received an email from RoadLink: 'We have discussed your comments and decided that we will not be carrying out weed spraying along the verges of the A69 next year. This will be on a rolling trial basis until such time that it becomes uneconomical or unsafe to remove weeds / ragwort by other methods. We will continue to target spray filter drains / injurious weeds and other areas deemed necessary for safety reasons.'

The presentations were followed by a lively discussion between the panel of speakers and the audience. All participants agreed on the increasing importance of road verges, not only as a corridor for pollinators and a means of preserving plant diversity, but also as a source of the wildflower seeds crucial for restoring our declining hay meadows.

It was felt that current verge management by local and highway authorities is dominated by a tidiness mindset that needs to be challenged. Despite the National Pollinator Strategy and Buglife's B-Line proposal, neither Highways England nor Northumberland County Council (NCC) appear to have any detailed policies to protect, let alone enhance, verge biodiversity. Indeed, spending cuts seem to be making things worse, making it more difficult to carry out verge cutting at an appropriate time to allow wildflowers to set seed whilst preventing more aggressive species crowding them out. Verge management on the A69 appears to be over-resourced, while a cash-strapped NCC is struggling to manage other road verges in Northumberland.

It was noted that local councils and officials frequently pay far more attention to complaints and pressure for change from individual members of the public than to 'in-house' advisers.

The meeting was a useful first step, providing a valuable exchange of information and a networking opportunity for panel members, members of STS and the public who attended. Suggestions for verge monitoring, seed gathering and verge rewilding activities that could be carried out by members of the public were discussed with enthusiasm. However, it was recognised that further discussion and follow-up action is essential if our aspirations for pollinator-friendly verge management are to become policy, and practice, on road verges in Northumberland and the North Pennines.

Full minutes of this meeting and Jo's report of STS's meeting with RoadLink available on request. sue@mosspeteral.com