Missing hedgerows

[hifi_dave]

All around here - North Essex, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, the farmers have been digging out the hedgerows. Everywhere we travel, the fields have become prairies and I'm not a fan. I miss the hedgerows and worried about what it's doing to the wildlife and to the water table, with nothing left to soak up heavy rain.

This afternoon, I made a 20 mile trip to Cambridge with the majority of the journey along country roads. It was very apparent, that where the hedgerows were missing, the snow was all across the roads. Wherever the hedgerows and trees were still standing, the snow was only in the fields, where it should be.

To my mind, that is one very good reason to maintain the hedgerows but the farmers are intent on digging them out and chopping down the trees. I have been told that it is an EEC thing, where farmers get subsidies for this work but it flies in the face of everything 'green'. I have read many articles and seen several programmes on the TV, where farmers are encouraged to plant hedgerows and wild plants to build up the wildlife. So why are they cutting it all down ?

[struth]

we will pay the cost of losing them. its short sighted for a little profit. these things hold the earth together and balance the wildlife ecosystems

[Sherwood]

I suspect a lot of this vandalism is also illegal!

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/countryside-hedgerows-regulation-and-management

Geoff

[hifi_dave]

Exactly. I am wondering if the missing hedgerows is responsible for us and others I have spoken with, being inundated with Mice in the loft, last year. Poor little sods have nowhere to live and so they move into our garden and it is then just a short dash to the warmth of our lofts.

[paulf-2007]

Most of the farms I knew as a kid were bought out by large companies and the boundaries between those farms have gone. Again, it's greedy business trampling over whatever gets in the way.

[Pieoftheday]

All around here - North Essex, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, the farmers have been digging out the hedgerows. Everywhere we travel, the fields have become prairies and I'm not a fan. I miss the hedgerows and worried about what it's doing to the wildlife and to the water table, with nothing left to soak up heavy rain.

This afternoon, I made a 20 mile trip to Cambridge with the majority of the journey along country roads. It was very apparent, that where the hedgerows were missing, the snow was all across the roads. Wherever the hedgerows and trees were still standing, the snow was only in the fields, where it should be.

To my mind, that is one very good reason to maintain the hedgerows but the farmers are intent on digging them out and chopping down the trees. I have been told that it is an EEC thing, where farmers get subsidies for this work but it flies in the face of everything 'green'. I have read many articles and seen several programmes on the TV, where farmers are encouraged to plant hedgerows and wild plants to build up the wildlife. So why are they cutting it all down ?

I too thought that farmers found hedges useful, if at least for boundaries.up hear in Yorkshire they seem to take care of them and up in the lakes where we often visit they seem to too. It's odd they're destroying them down in Suffolk, a huge farming area,.

[Oddball]

I too thought that farmers found hedges useful, if at least for boundaries.up hear in Yorkshire they seem to take care of them and up in the lakes where we often visit they seem to too. It's odd they're destroying them down in Suffolk, a huge farming area,.

I think it depends on the area , but lets be serious for a minute , but most of the hedge losses were in the yrs between the 70's and 90's !
Its much much more difficult to remove hedge nowadays , but it does seem to happen in arable farming areas in some small cases still.
BUT , they will need very good reasons for doing so ,and in most cases there are incentives with stewardship schemes and the like to provide NEW hedges and boundary buffer strips with crops and plants that encourage wildlife !

I really dont think that its right to just trot out comments on hedge loss from what is more of a historical problem than to relate it to things tht are happening today!!
Yes we could do with hedges replanting ,but in large arable farming areas ,they are not that keen to go back to what once was ! (mainly because of larger machinery )

I hope this helps :(

[walpurgis]

Well if anybody knows, Anto should. :)

[Oddball]

Apologies if that was a bit of a rant !! This week has been very stressful with the freezing weather and snow (although we escaped the snow thank god !)
I sympathise with the lack of hedges , ours is a small dairy farm , and small fields with well maintained hedges that are cut once a year and the insides only every other ! This allows the berries etc to develop at least one yr in 2 and feed birds , create better habitat.
Beetle banks and field strips with alternative cropping , give voles , mice and wildlife a better chance ,but I agree about the obscene size ,and dull nature of big arable plots .means less of these sorts of things.
Maybe profit does drive it , and there are those that cant see the wildlife for what it is , but in the main its not as bad a situation nowadays as was .

We very ofter have a stack of haylege wrapped bales in one of our fields ,that probably houses the largest population of dormouses (I think) in the vicinity:D

Do well !!!:)

[hifi_dave]

Your farm describes how it should be but round here, I would estimate that 30 - 50% of the hedgerows have been removed. According to the specs linked to in post 3, the hedgerows are not allowed to be removed if they are longer than 20mtr and have gaps of less than 20mtr but the hedges which have been removed around here were far longer than 20 mtr. Seems like it's a fate accompli.(if that's the correct spelling). Once it's done, it's too late to complain.

The farmers are, in general, leaving some trees but all the hedges are going. We used to enjoy foraging for Blackberries and Slowberries but all the hedges have gone now. Talking with local people, they are also upset by this vandalism but no one seems to want to do anything about it. This recent heavy snow has shown the importance of decent hedges, which should be planted and not dug up. IMO.

Another thing is that the ditches, which are our only form of drainage, are not maintained. There are roads which are just about impassable when we have heavy rain and there has been quite a lot of flooding around here, because many ditches have filled in over the years. Just after we moved here and being ignorant about the importance of ditches, we had water in the house following some heavy snow. It was because the ditch at the end of our property had collapsed over the years. We persuaded the farmer to dig it out and we have had no more trouble.

[paulf-2007]

I think it depends on the area , but lets be serious for a minute , but most of the hedge losses were in the yrs between the 70's and 90's !
Its much much more difficult to remove hedge nowadays , but it does seem to happen in arable farming areas in some small cases still.
BUT , they will need very good reasons for doing so ,and in most cases there are incentives with stewardship schemes and the like to provide NEW hedges and boundary buffer strips with crops and plants that encourage wildlife !

I really dont think that its right to just trot out comments on hedge loss from what is more of a historical problem than to relate it to things tht are happening today!!
Yes we could do with hedges replanting ,but in large arable farming areas ,they are not that keen to go back to what once was ! (mainly because of larger machinery )

I hope this helps :(i reckon you are right about the hedges going between the seventies and nineties, the large companies bought out most of the farmers I knew around the eighties. I believe that some farms are reinstating hedges as they are home for birds that are natural pest control.

[hifi_dave]

Pity they aren't re-instating them around here, instead of digging them out.