Wetland creation in limestone quarries: enabling colonisation and enriching biodiversity

The Chipping Sodbury Quarry complex comprises a series of carboniferous limestone quarries, being worked, restored or prepared for extraction. Ultimately, in some 30 years’ time, the quarries will be flooded to form a series of lakes. Existing wetland habitats such as ponds and streams run through and lie adjacent to the quarry areas. They support a rich diversity of wetland species including nationally and internationally important species e.g. Lesser Horseshoe Bat, Great Crested Newt, and Otter all of which are associated with healthy freshwater habitats. Restoration of the quarry complex will provide a mosaic of habitats - deciduous woodland, calcareous grassland, cliffs, remnant woodland, hedges and mesotrophic grassland. However the majority of the site will become deep open-water habitat which can have limited intrinsic conservation value or be slow to develop. The margins of these large water bodies and other areas within the quarry offer great opportunities for wetland biodiversity enhancement, as habitat in their own right, as a source of species to colonise the lakes or as material to translocate to the lakes. The overall aim of this project is to use the quarry complex at Chipping Sodbury to develop best practice for wetland creation in limestone quarries. This will include creating varied, valuable and resilient wetland habitats in and around the quarry complex, that will support a range of species and form a wetland biodiversity hotspot in the region.