Bobservation No. 12

The Dyke from Newtimber Hill

Newtimber Hill

Owned by the National Trust, Newtimber Hill is a delight for walkers at all times of the year. Access is from a number of points, the best known, and most accessible, is from the farm at Saddlescombe.

Over the year it is possible to see many varieties of wild flowers including bluebell, pyramid spotted and bee orchid, campion, hare bell, thyme and cowslip. The fauna includes roe deer, badger, fox, rabbit, weasel and stoat. Birdlife is abundant, the more interesting include buzzard, red kite, kestrel, swallow, house martin, yellowhammer, wryneck, spotted flycatcher, linnet, skylark, meadow pipit and redstart. Butterflies, including several different blues are often present.

Cattle graze here at certain times of year and walking a dog requires strict observance of the regulations, however, when there are no cattle it is a great joy to see a dog running free across the Downland. The views across the South Downs looking west towards Chanctonbury are some of the finest in Sussex. At times, cloud will envelope the top of the Downs giving a ‘tablecloth’ effect and if you are lucky enough to be walking above the cloud, it is a memorable sight.

How fortunate we residents of Fulking parish are to have such a treasure so near our village. At the end of your walk the ‘Hikers Rest’ offers very acceptable food, drinks and ice cream.

The National Trust do a splendid job maintaining this gem and it is up to us to respect and cherish it. One piece of advice, if your dog poops on the hill, either put  it in a polybag or leave it to be disbursed by the rain, never leave the polybag on the hill, take it home with you.

Parish Council Meeting – 9th July 2015 7:30pm – Village Hall

Fulking Parish Council will hold their quarterly meeting at 7:30 on Thursday July 9th in the Village Hall — agenda. Members of the Press and Public are welcome to attend.

CATTLE ON THE DOWNS: Please note there is now an additional agenda item to discuss this topic. A National Trust warden will be available to answer any questions you may have.

Drones, Bridleways & Nesting Birds

Drone hovers over bridleway signAs the weather improves and more of us get out and about, the Parish Council would like to highlight a couple of issues raised in recent meetings:

Drones/Quadcopters – Please would owners of model aircraft/drones etc be as considerate as possible whilst enjoying their new toys, especially those equipped with cameras. There are numerous concerns regarding these gadgets – privacy, noise and damage to property/cars/people. Drones should be kept under control (i.e. line of sight) at all times and generally should not be flown within 150 metres of property and people as a kilo or two dropped from height can hurt! Basically you should not be filming other peoples private gardens. Please also be aware that you should obtain permission if you plan to publish images of anybody, especially Fulking-ites, on social media. See the links below to CAA guidelines. You will find more links on the CAA website providing further information.
First Person View’s – an animated guide to the basic rules of flying a drone.
CAA Detailed Guidelines

Bridleways – please don’t forget the rules about bridleways and footpaths.  Bridleways are meant for walkers, horse riders and cyclists only, which means no motor vehicles unless specific permission has been given by the landowner.  There may be some confusion about the bridleway from Four Acres corner to The Shepherd and Dog.  This is a bridleway and the normal rules apply, but a few people at either end have been granted vehicle access to their properties by the owners of the bridleway. Footpaths are for pedestrians only – absolutely no vehicles or horses.  There are some local ‘byways open to all traffic’ (BOATs), information on which can be found from the link below. The link also details information on all public rights of way. Please respect these rules – if you see anybody breaching them, please remind and/or report them to the National Trust and/or Police.
Rights of way map
Rights of way guidelines

Birds Nesting – Finally, we all want our gardens to look good, but please remember that this is bird nesting season and hedge trimming should be avoided from now until the end of August. It is an offence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981 to damage or destroy the nest of any wild bird so do try to respect this. If trimming has to be done, please keep to an absolute minimum and please keep it brief.

Parish Council Meeting – 9th April 2015 7:30pm – Village Hall

Fulking Parish Council will hold their quarterly meeting at 7:30 on Thursday April 9th in the Village Hall — agenda. Members of the Press and Public are welcome to attend.

Derek Blackhall
Clerk to Fulking Parish Council
01273 846186
22 Kymer Gardens
Hassocks
West Sussex
BN6 8QZ
(using the email address below)

andreadicksonfpc@gmail.com

Parish Council 8th January 7:30pm Village Hall

Fulking Parish Council will hold their quarterly meeting at 7:30 on Thursday January 8th in the Village Hall — agenda. Members of the Press and Public are welcome to attend.

Andrea Dickson
Clerk to Fulking Parish Council
01444 451060/andreadicksonfpc@gmail.com

Footpaths needing attention

B73BY
WSCC have changed the way that the Public Rights of Way are managed and maintained. They will now be inspected once every fifteen months as opposed to once every nine months. At the same time, WSCC are looking at the summer clearance programme for footpaths. This programme clears surface vegetation on approximately 10% of the network.

If you know of any footpaths/rights of way that need attention please can you inform me before the 8th January 2015 or in person at the PC meeting on that day. The PC will then advise WSCC.

Andrea Dickson
Clerk to the Parish Council
01444 451 060/andreadicksonfpc@gmail.com

St. Botolph’s reopens

St._Botolph's
A special re-opening event is to be held at St Botolph’s Church, in Annington Road, Botolphs, on Saturday 6th December 6, at 2:00pm (followed by a carol service at 3:00pm), to allow people to see the results of the year-long first phase of the £380,000 restoration project. Mulled wine and mince pies will be served. The charge is £3 per head, children under 16 free with an adult. More here.

Our earlier posts on this project were Churches Conservation Trust takes over St. Botolph’s (April 2013) and The restoration of St. Botolph’s (April 2014).

Mud on the Downs

Mud on the Downs
Charlie Cain, the National Trust’s Head Warden for the South Downs, writes:

The situation is not ideal and it is our intention to remove the cattle as soon as we can. The grass growth this year has been exceptional due to the long summer and we need to keep it under control. The grazing of cattle is the most effective natural way of doing this. The excessive rainfall this autumn has made the situation worse. The grass is still growing and the cattle are causing more damage because the ground is so soft.

I am regularly monitoring the condition of the paths. We intend to replace the cattle with sheep for the winter but at the moment sheep would not consume enough grass. I am unable to predict exactly when this will happen. It will depend on how much the grass continues to grow.

As regards fencing, we have let some of the fences fall into disrepair lately. This is because a larger area is more-efficiently grazed by cattle. When a fence is situated up and down the hill you tend to get more ungrazed areas because you change the grazing pattern of the animals. Our plans for next year however include splitting the Fulking hillside into three paddocks. This may make it easier to control damage to paths because we will be able to move cattle away from the worst-affected areas.