Sompting Brooks environmental project continues to inspire community

The Enhancing Places, Inspiring Communities (EPIC) project, a partnership between the Ouse & Adur Rivers Trust and Sompting Estate Trust, has been working to improve the site around Sompting Brooks.

Since a new river channel was completed in September last year, the project has concentrated on creating habitats and a river trail which will form public access to the area.

Over the last three months, more than 150 members of the local community have joined volunteers from the Prince’s Trust, Adur and Worthing councils and the Environment Agency in planting more than 7,000 hedge plants as part of a 2.2km hedgerow.

The hedgerow will mark the boundary between the river trail and wildflower meadows for conservation grazing, as well as create habitats and allow animals to move around the site.

The project has also handed out 150 trees to local schools to grow for a year before pupils come to the site and plant them along the river.

Project manager Peter King said: “We are really pleased to have had such wonderful support from the local community through this phase of the project, despite some pretty horrid weather conditions people have still come along and got stuck in to help with creating these features.

“We know there are bats, hedgehogs, birds and small mammals on the site which all rely on hedgerows for feeding, nesting or moving around so this will be a big help to secure the diverse range of wildlife we have been seeing here.”

Sompting Brooks also allows the community to take part in photography courses, bird box building, bird walks with mouse nest searches and the chance to borrow camera traps to record wildlife in their gardens.