Volunteers needed for Accrington rail line scheme (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Volunteers needed for Accrington rail line scheme

1:41pm Wednesday 1st February 2012 in News By Catherine Pye, Reporter

HELP is needed transforming a former railway route in the centre of Accrington into a nature reserve.

Volunteers are currently transforming the site at Woodnook Vale – which follows the lost railway route from Stubbins North to Accrington – but more are needed.

The line closed in the 1960s under the Beeching proposals, leaving a 27 hectare site, much of which is now a Biological Heritage Site.

More than 250 plants have been recorded including trees and shrubs with various mosses, liverworts, lichens and fungi.

The site also supports birds and invertebrates, such as butterflies and moths, damselflies and dragonflies, spiders and beetles.

The route takes cyclists and walkers from Accrington to Baxenden and the West Pennine Moors, passing former textile mills, coal mines and areas of ancient woodland at Priestley Clough.

Lancashire Wildlife Trust projects officer Kim Coverdale said: “We have already cleared steps, rubbish from the entrance, installed posts for safety and widened the path. But we need new volunteers to join with the volunteers who regularly come here.

“A lot of the work will include brushcutter training and cutting back Himalayan balsam, which is a problem on the site.”

Information boards will be set up at entrances on Nuttall Street, Hill Street and Priestley Clough. A new footpath is to be built to restore a traditional Sunday walk and create an accessible walk for trampers.

Some of this will involve working with Hollins Technology College students to involve them in the management of the site.

Volunteers will be needed for clearing and planting work on Monday, February 6, meeting at Nuttall Street at 10.30am.