Managing Hastings Country Park Nature Reserve

The Hastings Country Park Nature Reserve Management Plan 2020-2030 sets out our strategic vision for the management of the site with the aim of helping reverse the decline in biodiversity in the UK.

The management objectives for the reserve are specified in the council's Countryside Stewardship funding agreement with Natural England.

What is Countryside Stewardship?

Countryside Stewardship is a 10-year government funded management grant to help land managers look after and improve the environment by:

• increasing biodiversity
• improving habitat
• expanding woodland areas
• improving water quality
• improving air quality.
  

Countryside Stewardship 2024-2034

The aim of the Hastings Country Park Nature Reserve Countryside Stewardship agreement 2024-2034, is to manage and restore threatened habitats, increase opportunities for habitats and species to flourish and manage the unique and important landscape for nature and people.

The new Countryside Stewardship agreement aims to further build upon the work achieved under the two previous stewardship agreements. The first between 2003 and 2013, which moved the farmed land out of intensive management and the second from 2013 to 2023, that moved to a low input arable system, reduced nutrient levels in the grassland fields and brought the Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Special Area of Conservation (SAC) land into agreement and began the restoration of some of the heathland areas.

The agreement aims to bring the landscape together to form connected and complementary habitats. The key areas of change will be the transition of the arable fields to wood pasture, floristic diversification of the grassland fields, further and extended restoration of heathland habitats, connectivity of the hedgerows network and the inclusion of East Hill within the agreement, primarily to protect its historic features.

The objectives of the agreement are:

• to manage, create, maintain, and / or restore priority habitats such as lowland heathland, species rich grassland (acid and neutral), maritime cliff and slope, and wood pasture
• to support appropriate grazing management of priority habitats
• to support priority species present on the site
• to maintain or restore archaeological and historic features on the site.
  

This will be achieved through a mixture of livestock grazing, contractors, and volunteer tasks.

Within the first three years of the agreement, a programme of capital works will be implemented to remove sycamore, sweet chestnut and birch trees which have encroached into the heathland areas within Warren Glen, the Quarry and North's Seat, along with the reduction of gorse cover. Vegetation will also be removed from the top and faces of the cliff at the quarry.

Not all trees will be removed and selected trees will remain (mainly oak) to provide open areas to for future nesting and roosting sites for raptors, birds and bats. Together with the control of bracken, this will open up areas to encourage heath and acid grassland species.