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Learn how London Gatwick Airport surveyed their road verges to help protect vulnerable wildflower species and create new wildflower-rich habitats that support rare pollinators.
The London Gatwick Airport Ltd Environment Team has identified opportunities and benefits to changing their approach to managing road verges, including:
In support of the business’ Decade of Change sustainability targets, a trial was proposed in 2019 to investigate the potential for wildflower-friendly road verge management at London Gatwick. The team manages 27.6 hectares of road verge estate.
Starting with a baseline botanical survey, gives the existing wildflowers on the verges a chance to thrive and informs how to best protect the plants and manage the verge for nature. The proposal was created in collaboration with London Gatwick’s engineering department and grounds maintenance contractor Glendale Services and approved by Aerodrome safeguarding.
The road verges are sufficiently far away from the airfield to keep wildlife and traffic safe, meeting the requirements of the Civil Aviation Authority.
A regular 1m safety cut is maintained to ensure sightlines are kept clear, and safety standards are met – also creating a safety buffer between the wildlife and the road.
The Wildflower Road Verges project trial began in 2019 with a baseline botanical survey, to understand the existing biodiversity on the verges and identify species of interest.
During the summer of 2019, experienced botanist Laurie Jackson surveyed a combined area of approx. 6.79 hectares covering 19 road verges within London Gatwick landside areas. Serving as a repeatable baseline, the survey enabled London Gatwick to set targets based on the abundance (% cover) of positive and negative indicator wildflower species. The baseline botanical surveys found a total of 14 positive and 12 negative indicator plant species.
Survey methods used to measure the habitat biodiversity often split species into positive or negative categories. Positive indicator species signal healthy or high-quality ecosystems, while negative indicator species indicate poorer habitat or ecosystem stress.
Knowing from the start how many positive and negative wildflower species helps monitor change over time. A success would be seeing a greater percentage of positive indicator species.
After adopting the new mowing regime, a burst of colourful and protected wildflower species were discovered on site:
In 2021, just 2 years after the change in management, the surveys showed the average positive indicator species per verge had increased from 5.16 to 7.4.
This is a testament to how a change in management can help increase this valuable habitat across London Gatwick’s estate. The survey also highlighted the role of wildflower-rich road verges in providing a refuge for the rare and declining species found at London Gatwick.
In 2021, the baseline surveys were extended to include pollinators, using the Flower-Inset Timed Counts (FIT Counts) methodology devised by the UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme (PoMS) to examine the available food for pollinating insects.
A particular focus was looking for evidence of flagship species such as the Long-horned Bee and Grizzled Skipper Butterfly, Section 41 species of principal importance which are present within London Gatwick adjacent biodiversity areas.
A total of 41 invertebrate species were recorded on the road verges, most of which were actively foraging on wildflowers.
Three of these were species with a conservation designation, which are all of conservation concern in the UK:
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