the GARDEN OF ENGLAND project

PROJECT OVERVIEW

SCALE: 39,400 ha

LOCATION: Swale Borough

CORRIDOR ROLE: The Garden of England landscape comprises nature-friendly farming and fruit-orchards, acting as a buffer between intensive agriculture, infrastructure (High Speed Rail, M2 and M20 motorways) and the sensitive Swale Estuary.

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CORE INTERVENTIONS

  • Connected arable margins

  • Species-rich grassland restoration on marginal land

  • Ditch, dyke and headwater restoration

  • Hedgerow and shelterbelt restoration

  • Traditional orchard restoration in the fruit-belt

  • Nutrient interception wetlands and scrapes

  • Soil conservation measures

ECOSYSTEMS SERVICES & BENEFITS

  • Nutrient reduction and water quality improvement

  • Pollinator services: supporting pollinators and connectivity

  • Soil health improvement

  • Recovery of threatened habitats and species

INVESTMENT OUTCOMES

  • Nature-friendly food produce

  • Food security supported by pollination and healthy soils

  • Generates BNG units

  • Measurable reduction in nutrient load impacts

  • Water quality and supply resilience

  • Environmental improvement for public benefit

NATURAL CAPITAL ESTIMATES

  • TRADITIONAL ORCHARDS

    Kent's traditional orchards are a priority habitat and a cultural signature of the "Garden of England", their old fruit trees and grassland supporting rich communities of pollinators, birds and invertebrates.

  • nightingale

    Few sounds in nature are as celebrated as the song of the nightingale.

    British numbers have collapsed by more than 90% in fifty years. The Hoo Peninsula and north Kent are now among its last strongholds.

    A summer visitor that crosses the Sahara to breed here, the nightingale needs areas of wet ground, dense scrub and some bare ground beneath it to thrive.

  • FIELD MARGINS

    Field margins are a habitat in their own right: over 80 of the UK's arable plant species are now nationally rare or scarce, and restored as a connected network they become wildlife highways through the farmed landscape.

  • TURTLE DOVE

    One of the UK's fastest-declining birds, with a 99% UK decline since the late 1960s.

    The turtle dove depends on the seeds, scrub and margins this landscape provides.

    Every spring the turtle dove returns to North Kent, having flown some 5,000 kilometres from sub-Saharan West Africa.

    With support from RSPB’s Operation Turtle Dove, this farmland bird has returned and the farmers who work this land heard it purring in the scrub again.

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