10-year partnership at Maxey Reserve

In Summer 2019, we celebrated our working partnership with the Langdyke Trust sponsoring the celebrations of their 20th anniversary. The main event was hosted at our Maxey Reserve, located at Maxey quarry and our site team provided a stand demonstrating how the quarry operations work and how we restore the land once extraction is completed.

The restoration of our Maxey Reserve was completed back in 2007 and since 2009 we have managed the site in partnership with the local conservation group Langdyke Trust. The reserve covers almost 32 hectares of land and has been restored to a mix of ditches, ponds wet grasslands, wet and deciduous woodland patches and lowland meadows.

During spring and summer, the site hosts common tern and black headed gulls, little grebes, mute swans, skylark, redshank and lapwing. Cuckoo, turtle dove, hobby and marsh harrier are regular summer visitors too. In winter, the reserve provides food and shelter for ducks such as teal, gadwall and shovelar. Snipe and jack snipe can be found in the flooded meadows, along with wading birds, including dunlin, black tailed godwit and ringed plover can be seen as well. The site boasts a remarkable amount of invertebrate, with 775 different species recorded and is also home to a number of water voles.

Grazing plays a key role in the management of the reserve, enhancing the diversity of the meadows. By controlling dominant grasses species and creating patches of bare ground, grazing provides a fantastic habitat for invertebrates and birds.

This reserve is part of the restoration of the whole Tarmac Maxey quarry. So far, Tarmac has restored there 102 hectares, of which 71.5 hectares were UK Priority Habitats. There are a further 66.5 hectares more of UK Priority Habitats to be created though the next quarry restoration works to come along the following years.