Bid to improve vandal-hit Hyndburn wildlife reserve (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Bid to improve vandal-hit Hyndburn wildlife reserve

3:20pm Friday 19th March 2010 in

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A SCHEME of work to improve an underused wildlife reserve has got underway.

The £7,000 project has already seen several vandalised parts of the 22-acre Foxhill Bank Nature Reserve site in Oswaldtwistle repaired.

The dipping platform at a lodge at the site has been completely rebuilt in stone after being repeatedly torched and all signage and entrance gates are to be replaced after being targeted by yobs.

Foxhill Bank is home to up to 56 breeding species of birds and more than 200 types of plants.

The Wildlife Trust has now put East Lancashire reserve officer Phil Dykes in position at the nature reserve.

He said: “The site is definitely underused and a lot of the work we are doing is to encourage people to use it.

“I certainly believe that there are not a lot of people who even know that we are here.”

Much of the work is completed by a passionate team of volunteers with funding from Hyndburn Council and the Forestry Commission.

There has been work to thin dense areas of wildlife and work to improve paths is to be completed.

Tony Flanagan, 56, the chairman of the volunteer group at the site, said: “We want to provide the best possible habitat for wildlife.

“There are kingfishers, tawny owls and woodpeckers that can regularly be spotted at Foxhill Bank.

“There has been a problem with vandalism but we are determined to work to improve the site and speak with the young people that come here to make sure that there is no trouble.”

Tinker Brook runs through Foxhill Bank, which has been a nature reserve for more than 20 years. There are also two lodges, former reservoirs that used to serve a nearby factory.