Higher Level Stewardship and Golf

Jonathan Wood, Courses Manager at 36-hole Enville Golf Club, discusses the route to securing Higher Level Stewardship for its Lodge and Highgate courses.

In February 2007 as our existing countryside stewardship agreement was drawing to its, conclusion it was suggested that it would be of great benefit to both the golf courses and the course’s environment, if we were to apply for Higher Level Stewardship.

The Natural England representative who was visiting at the time was confident that we would be accepted onto the Higher Level Stewardship scheme due to the level of work recently completed and the sites overall value to the wider countryside.

Environmental Stewardship is a government-funded scheme administered by natural England. It is an agri-environmental scheme, which aims to secure widespread environmental benefits. The scheme has three elements:

1. Entry level Stewardship
2. Organic Entry level Stewardship
3. Higher Level Stewardship.

Entry Level Stewardship is a ‘whole farm scheme’ (farm is used due to the agri bias of the scheme but applies to all open managed land) open to all farmers and other land managers.

The first two levels are fairly self-explanatory, but the Higher-level Stewardship is focused on the more complex and high priority environments and situations. For example, heathland is a high priority as it is of great importance due to its Biodiversity Action Plan. This level requires specific levels of management and specific criteria to be in place before acceptance onto this scheme becomes an option.

In order to be considered for the Higher-level Stewardship, a Farm Environmental Plan (FEP) has to be completed. This plan will identify features and habitats, which will then have specific management plans associated with them for their improvement and long term management which in turn will benefit the environment. This plan is very detailed and as such, pretty time consuming, and needs to be completed with the help of an ecologist to ensure it gives good underpinning knowledge of the specific areas in question.

The plan for Enville Golf Club was carried out by an ecologist from the local Farming and Wildlife Group (FWAG). The ecologist I worked with was very familiar with the requirements of Natural England set out under the Higher-level Stewardship. In the past, landowners have been turned sown due to an insufficient FEP being completed. The cost of the FEP can be partially claimed back upon acceptance onto the Stewardship.

As part of this process, we compiled very detailed plans of the golf courses from ordinance survey maps and the areas of management. These will help in the planning stage and the monitoring of ongoing work; they also give a definitive resource for day-to-day applications.

The FEP was completed over a month and the ecologist worked very closely with myself as the Courses Manager, to make sure all areas of the golf course were visited so that the maximum benefit could be achieved from the Stewardship. As we are a predominately heathland site, the main emphasis centred around these areas. However, the semi ancient woodland and predominately coniferous woodland areas were to figure significantly in the final report and subsequent stewardship.

Other less conspicuous areas were also investigated which in general would not have been part of our existing management. Some of these areas were highlighted due the fact that as part of the FEP an historical survey of the golf courses had to be completed using old council archives to ascertain if there would be any historical features unbeknown to the present management, which could be renovated or improved. This did uncover some interesting historical sites and features. For example, in particular we discovered that in two areas of the courses, there were sites of warrener’s Lodges. These would have been stone dwellings for men employed by the local landowner to maintain and protect the rabbit colonies. Rabbits were the staple diet of most people of wealth and also produced fur for clothing. Around the fourteenth century, Warrener’s were some of the highest paid manorial officials and this would explain the existence of these purpose-built Lodges, which would have been built to very high standards to keep out poachers and people trying to steel the valuable commodity inside. They would invariably have been built on high ground on the open heathland, so as to give the warrener’s the best vantage point to survey their land and to be able to see oncoming danger. The last recoding of these Lodges was in 1623. We have researched these buildings and have found this picture below of what the Lodges would have looked like (Image A).

Although they have no significant interest today, it is good to increase overall knowledge of the history of the site we work on.

The historical survey also revealed two pools sites to the south of the Highgate course. Recordings of these pools date back to 1775, whilst one of the pools still remains today and has recently been renovated and extended. The second pool has dried up and trees have encroached into the area. It is the intention under the agreement that we will reinstate this pool and add another environment to the golf course.

As part of the Stewardship we have been able to complete plans developed with the STRI Ecology team of Bob Taylor and Kelly Harmon to install a reed bed system to reduce the amount of silt and nitrates reaching our pools. The pools are naturally fed from a watercourse which pulls water from the surrounding agricultural land. This was presenting problems with the existing pool in terms of weed and algae infestation. The reed bed system has created another great environment on the golf course site combined with reducing a problem.

One of the key areas under the Stewardship was the facility to claim for capital work items and special items, which would be used to complete the management proposals within the agreement. For instance the special item we claimed for was a new flail collector, which will be used extensively in the preparation of new heathland areas from grassland and also for the ongoing management of the heathland. This machine was eventually partially funded through the agreement.

The FEP, along with our application, was submitted to Natural England in June 2007 and by the beginning of September, we had received the great news that we had been successful with our application. The Stewardship agreement was scheduled to start on the 1st October 2007, so there were a number of meetings with Natural England representatives to finalise some of the finer details, following which we were then ready to start.

During October we were given the official agreement document, which sets out the requirements of the agreement, the amount of area to work on and an outline of the specific management techniques and requirements, along with indicators of success attached to the specific areas of management. The total area covered by the agreement is 100.65 Ha with the total golf courses being 121.4 Ha.

Outlined below are the areas that the agreement covers and a brief outline of indicators of success for their management:

Maintenance of Woodland

• Tree species Oak/Ash/Field Maple/Beech and Birch should be present at irregular spacing, with overall canopy cover of between 50% and 75% of the area.
• Cover of shrubs Hazel/Hawthorn/Blackthorn/Holly and Heather should be between 10% and 25%.
• A network of rides and open ground should cover between 10% and 30% of the area.
• By year ten of the Scheme, none of the undesirable species of Himalayan Balsam and Poplar, should be more than occasional.

Maintenance of Lowland Heathland

• Cover of dwarf shrubs, at least two species, should be between 25% and 95%.
• There should be a wide range of age classes of dwarf shrubs present. This should include between 10% and 15% cover of the pioneer stage, between 25% and 40% cover of the building stage, between 25% and 40% cover of the mature stage, between 10% and 30% cover of the degenerate stage and no more than 10% cover of dead dwarf shrubs.
• Cover of bare ground should be less than 5% of the land.
• Cover of Western gorse should be between 2% and 10%.
• Cover of bryophytes and lichens should be at least 10%.

Restoration of Forestry areas to Lowland Heathland

• By year five the cover of heather should be between 10% and 50%
• By year ten the cover of heather should be a mix of at least two of these three species: Calluna Vulgaris, Erica Cinerea and Erica Tetralix.
• By year ten the cover of common gorse should be between 2% and 10%.
• By year ten the cover of bare ground should be between 5% and 10%.

Creation of Lowland Heathland from improved Grassland.

• By year ten the cover of heather should be between 25% and 50% and include two of the three species already mentioned.
• By year ten the cover of common gorse should be between 2% and 10%.
• By year five the cover of bare ground should be between 1% and 5%.

We are implementing a wide range of techniques in achieving the above goals which have been trailed and assessed over many years of heather management. The technique of turf stripping has been the most successful and has given us good quality fescue turf for bunker construction and maintenance. We have used the turf to enhance the appearance of new and old bunkers making them blend into the surrounding environment and giving them really character which adds to the feature. We have found within two years the existing seed which has been lying dormant will germinate and start to establish in the turf stripped area within two years. The two pictures below show an area of turf stripping and the soil profile with the turf remaining. Please note the area of dark soil in which the dormant heather seed exists.