Grundon grants help breathe new life into old ponds

Grundon has been helping breathe new life into old ponds through a series of grants via the Landfill Communities Fund (LCF).

High in the Chiltern Hills in Oxfordshire, the Greenmoor Ponds have provided a habitat for toads, frogs and newts for over 2,000 years.

In summer 2023 however, the Lower Greenmoor Pond lost all its water and investigations by the local Woodcote Conservation Group found that the pond’s natural clay lining had been damaged, allowing water to drain through into the chalk below.

Woodcote Parish Council led an appeal to raise £45,000 to restore the pond, and Grundon stepped forward to donate £25,000 of LCF funds via the Trust for Oxfordshire’s Environment (TOE), an environmental charity that distributes the funds on Grundon’s behalf.

A crowdfunding campaign and donations raised the balance of the money and work took place to first carefully remove the silt that had built up over decades, before 400 tonnes of Lias clay was brought in to reline the pond and seal the bottom to ensure it would hold water again. An area of shallows was also created to improve wildlife habitat.

Water levels have now risen – after the wet weather in January and February, the pond was  more than 7 ft deep – and, while ongoing restoration and monitoring work is continuing, migrating frogs, toads and newts have been returning once again to their breeding habitat. A dedicated team of ‘toad patrollers’ has been out regularly since the beginning of February, helping over a thousand amphibians, including toads, frogs, smooth newts, and palmate newts, safely cross the road to reach their breeding ponds.

The ponds are an important resource for other wildlife species too, nine of England’s 17 bat species have been found in the area and are using new bat boxes put up by one of the volunteers.

Grundon has also worked with TOE to give two further LCF grants to other Oxfordshire pond restoration projects.

The first was a seasonal pond at the Howe Trust community land in Wheatley, Oxfordshire, where a dense ring of trees surrounded the pond, meaning very little daylight was getting through. With £880 from Grundon and £120 from the TOE Community Fund, the Howe Trust Pond Restoration team undertook a tree clearance programme to open up the area for wildlife and create a dead hedge.

The community land, which is known collectively as The Howe, includes allotments, a small orchard and memorial tree area as well as grassland, scrub, hedgerows, 4 large wildlife ponds and woodland.

Meanwhile in Childrey village, near Wantage, the Childrey Pond Restoration project was launched to clear the silt and vegetation that had built-up in and around the picturesque village pond.

The project was jointly funded by Childrey Parish Council and TOE, the latter providing funding via Grundon’s LCF grant which covered half of the £1,440 cost. A two-day programme saw 80 tons of material removed from the pond and, after some heavy rainfall, it soon filled enough for some geese to enjoy a long-awaited bath.

A spokesman for the Parish Council commented: “Childrey Parish Council are indebted to TOE for the generous grant and also their expertise and encouragement in this project. Clear guidance throughout the process and the personal interest in the project from the TOE team made the project much easier to get off the ground finally deliver.”

Toni concluded: