The LMCT recently awarded a grant of £439 to the Lower Mole Partnership for the purchase of new tools. This will enabled them to purchase a new router and jigsaw for their workshops tasks, some saws for site work, and a second splitting axe for volunteers to use to process firewood.
May 2024.
In October the LMP completed the first year of work on the two-year work plan, carrying out improvements on the Common to widen firebreaks, making it more protected during the predicted hotter summers. Work was completed along the edge of the Common, close to Ashtead Gap. This follows on from a previous agreement and is supported by the City of London Corporation, via a generous grant made to the Lower Mole Trust.
June 2024.
The donation of the kiln to a local coppice worker was reported on in the last edition of Mole Matters. It was successfully delivered to 60 Acre Wood in Chessington, and is being put to good use making local, sustainable charcoal.
This small area of native woodland is a very important remnant of a much larger one as the name suggests and has been worked continually by the same coppice worker, who uses all the wood cut and is the source of chestnut for bench legs and barriers for LMP tasks. His work has produced a mosaic of coppiced woodland that provide a much-needed habitat for wildlife.
June 2024.
The LMT has agreed a grant of £200 for the LMP to make and install an additional 12 Dormouse boxes at Brockham Lime works. The Lower Mole Partnership successfully applied for a grant in 2018 to make and install dormouse nesting boxes on some of our work sites. 38 boxes in total have been located at Brockham Lime works, a site that the LMP have recently been working on. These were installed in 2022, and when surveyed in 2023, many of the boxes had dormice nesting in them.
The additional boxes will take the total up to 50, meaning that it can be registered as an official dormouse site. The grant will cover the cost of the timber and fixings to make the boxes, and the costs for our volunteers to make them in our workshops and install them on site.
June 2024.
A grant of £360 has been awarded to the LMP for the purchase of an electric chainsaw. Much of the winter work they carry out involves the use of chainsaws, from cutting scrub, removing stumps, felling trees and producing logs for sale. This new saw will allow them to continue their work and at the same time reduce carbon emissions, including pollutants from petrol and make a nicer working environment for our volunteers due to the decreased noise level that comes with battery chainsaws.
June 2024.
The Surrey Countryside Partnerships are very pleased to be developing a great corporate partnership with Ringway Surrey, who have a ten year contract with our host authority Surrey County Council, looking after highways maintenance. Ringway operates a policy that staff get involved with corporate volunteering and teams of employees have joined in on task sessions with the Lower Mole and Surrey Heathland Partnerships since January 2023, most recently in March with the Moles at Hersham Riverside.
In 2023, Ringway Surrey nominated the Lower Mole Countryside Trust as one of the charities to receive a portion of their marketing merchandise budget. Rather than the company purchasing more merchandise to give away at events, which often means creating plastic items that end up in people’s cupboards or in landfill, staff were instead asked to vote on where a financial donation should be made. Votes were collected on the various charities nominated – the voting device was notably a fun small, squishy traffic cone! – and LMCT was delighted to receive 25% of the votes and thus a lovely donation of £375.00 in January 2024. Our many thanks to Ringway Surrey for this generous donation and for their ongoing support of our partnerships and in turn, the LMCT too.
The Trust’s Board meets approximately every two months at Horton Country Park, Epsom to consider funding applications.
• A detailed project outline
• Full cost breakdown
• Explanation of the project’s benefits to the countryside and local communities