Dorset Council and Litter Free Dorset will once again be encouraging residents and visitors to celebrate Dorset’s roadside verges as havens for biodiversity and wildlife with the ‘Love Your Verge’ campaign.
Love Your Verge is a countywide collaboration between the council’s Coast and Greenspace Service and Litter Free Dorset. It aims to raise awareness about the council’s work to increase and maintain biodiversity in verges, as part of the response to the Climate and Ecological Emergency. By increasing awareness about the importance of Dorset’s thriving verges, the campaign also aims to deter people from littering on roadsides.
Changes to verge management in Dorset include an increase in cut and collect mowing – a technique which helps to reduce the soil fertility over time, creating a better environment for wildflowers. The council has also reduced verge cutting throughout the rural road network to once instead of twice per year, in areas where it is safe to do so. This allows more flowers to complete their life cycles before being cut. Verges which already have high biodiversity value, known as ‘conservation verges’, are managed to ensure biodiversity can continue to thrive each year.
Verges are increasingly known as important areas for wildlife, and the work in Dorset has caught the attention of national media. The Wildlife Trust already recognise a number of verges in Dorset as Sites of Nature Conservation Interest (SNCI), a designation which is given to sites that have substantive nature conservation and geological value. The council aim to establish even more SNCI sites this year, as part of its work to address the ecological emergency.
Littering also causes major issues for plants and wildlife in Dorset’s verges and cleaning up the discarded rubbish is a costly and time-consuming operation. To help discourage littering, the campaign will include colourful signage installed around the county. The signs feature a range of animals and insects, drawing attention to the types of wildlife that inhabit the verges and thanking drivers for taking their rubbish home with them.
Cllr Ray Bryan, Dorset Council Portfolio Holder Highways, Travel and Environment, said:
“The loss of natural habitats is a major threat for pollinators, which are essential for helping plants and crops to grow. We’re proud of the work Dorset’s Coast and Greenspace Service do each year, which is helping to transform our verges and restore some of these vital habitats.
“Safety remains our top priority, so our approach must strike a balance between cutting verges regularly where needed for visibility and working to protect and enhance Dorset’s natural environment.
“By raising awareness about the important work to encourage and protect the plants and wildlife in our verges, we hope more people will do their bit by choosing to take their litter home and disposing of it responsibly.”
Residents and visitors can get involved with the campaign by sharing their photos or videos of the plants and wildlife they’ve spotted in Dorset’s verges and using the #LoveYourVerge.
Why is it the verges in Dorchester and Poundbury are all cut nice and neat but not Portland? Surely it should be across the board if that is what you are doing?
Love your verge – what is the council doing about persistent parking fully on a grass verge?
I live behind the ebblake industrial site, verwood and the verge by the traffic lights is regularly parked on by people too lazy to park on the road.
This verge used to be used by 4 or 5 vehicles regularly- suddenly only 1 or 2 persist – has the council already told residents? If so, some are ignoring the council. The grass verge is half grass and half mud!
Our verges here (Corscombe) are well flowered and we collect litter as often as possible.
HOWEVER the dreaded wild garlic is taking over, smothering the early flowers and then dying in a stinking mess. It has already killed off an area of bluebells and continues to spread.
Action on that??
I am so GRATEFUL for the work of Dorset Council for its conservation work and PROUD that we have caught national attention for conservation of VERGES.
A hugh thank you to Dorset Council for working in partnership with West Moors Town Council to convert our verges back to wild flower refuges for bees,butterflies , moths and many invertebrates. The public love the idea of re-wilding.
Also massive thanks for helping us create the Queen’s Platinum Copse in West Moors to commemorate the Queen’s seventy years on the throne. Again our residents are delighted.
I do hope this does in fact mark a sea change, and some real thought is given to the extent to which, and when, verges are cut, as at times there seems to have no commonsense applied, despite all the fine words. I have been pressing for several years for a more rational approach, but at times felt I was getting nowhere. However, there were signs last year of a change of approach, and I just hope it continues. The next thing is to really get on top of verge-side litter (which I appreciate is not an easy problem to solve) – and in particular how to deal with the vast amounts that are exposed when verges are cut ie somehow collecting it, rather than leaving it more visible than ever.
I was sad to get home to find out our road verges cut obliterating any wild flowers . I understand we are on an A road (A356)but surely a little less could be cut on the narrower verges and maybe cut in June when the bluebells and other flowers have had a chance to seed .I was so hoping your “love your verge” would have applied to our roads around our village (South Perrott)
I am concerned that Poole and Bournemouth are not following suit and have decimated the trees and hedges and verges around the Poole area: Creekmoor and Broadstone, right on the Dorset council boundry line. I would also like to know how I could campaign against this. I am grateful to Dorset Council who seem to understand the importance of our environment.
Hi Debbie, I’m afraid I can’t comment on the practices around Poole and Bournemouth but I can pass your comment to our communication colleagues at BCP council who may be able to respond. We take our verges very seriously in Dorset and want to promote all the good things that come from letting them flourish for the benefit of pollinators. Of course, the big advantage we have in Dorset is that many of our roads are rural and are suited to this kind of maintenance, whereas Poole is quite urban in places and road user’s safety must come first. I hope this helps. Are you happy for me to pass on your email address to my colleagues in BCP? Thanks, Kirstie
I fully support the verge management however I notice that there are many residents who have taken to mowing their own patch of grass verge outside their houses. Maybe they don’t understand the principles behind not mowing the verges and think that the council is just saving money? is it possible that leaflets could be dropped through letterboxes where residents are mowing the grass prematurely to ask them not to mow the grass?
Unfortunately this is not really an option for the council as leaflet dropping in specific areas is expensive and we just don’t have budget for this kind of thing. Over the coming weeks and months, our messages about verges should go out on lots of channels including through local radio and tv, in parish magazines, on site signage and through the partnership organisations we work with. Hope this helps, Kirstie.
Do you mow your back garden? If you do why are you not letting it grow for the same reason the council are reluctant to mow verges!!!
Yes agree with this idea, but I’ve requested for past 3 years for council to eradicate Himalayan balsom growing opposite. Submit each year for for somebody to come along and view etc, but end or year, the form is closed and nothing done.
Didn’t bother last year, due to lack of council interest.
Perhaps writing here somebody may do something.
I love the ideas behind this work, and appreciate the real need for safe places for our wildlife to be, but am slightly confused to see extensive mowing on verges around Wimborne and Corfe Mullen in the past few days. Verges that were full of flowers, long grasses and a wide range of plants have been cut short, (some right next to Love the Verge signs), while tiny clumps have been left…. Surely the flowers need to be left for pollinators and caterpillars (as long as they are not in the way of road users) rather than wait for the stretches of soil which have been planted with wild flower seeds to grow?
I took it further to stop vehicle’s parking on the verge outside our house, I dug up the 2 trenches that the car left and sowed wild flowers. They are now flowering and look amazing and it has stopped people parking on the grass. Win win It’s a pity I can’t share the photos.
I am very happy that the patch of grass outside my home is not cut regularly by Dorset council, but I do object to the mess left after it was cut recently .No grass was collected and it just dried to hay and and the wind blew it all over the pavement and all over my low wall. It took a lot of effort for me to clear it up. During the heatwave this week it could also have been a fire hazard.
I thought Dorset Council were collecting cuttings to eventually encourage wildflowers to grow thus aiding pollinators.