L’Ancresse Common summer update

The warm, dry summer (so far!) means that L’Ancresse Common is in good shape if a little brown in places and our small, hard-working team who maintain it were able to complete most of their tasks in July.

One of the most visible was grass cutting, which is essential to maintain the integrity of the Common itself now that it’s no longer intensively grazed by livestock, as used to happen years ago.

Without regular cutting the grass would soon be overtaken by other vegetation and its distinctive appearance and habitat lost for all time. It’s also one of the reasons the Vale Commons Council encourages the Conservation Herd to use agreed areas for grazing as “munch, not mow” is even better for maintaining the turf.

As you may have seen, the herd was recently providing its essential services at Lucksall, near the children’s play area. 

Where we do have to cut mechanically we wait until after the flowers have finished and they and the grasses have had time to seed, so July was a perfect month to top the turf there, along what’s known as the Donkey Divers triangle, at La Greve (pictured above), the Orchid area opposite and the areas in front of the houses along L’Ancresse Road. The work also included the KeyPrice bus turning area.

As the island’s largest area of open public land, the Common gets a lot of use, including by dog walkers. The Commons Council provides bins for owners to safely and properly dispose of dog waste and we’ve found recently – trigger alert if you’re of a sensitive nature! – that they were filling up very quickly.

This is great because it means owners are being responsible and picking up after their pets but it also means we’ve had to ask our contractor to collect and change the bins three times a week, up from the previous two collections.

This obviously comes at a cost, which the Vale Commons Council covers, and is another example of how we work on behalf of the rest of the island to keep the Common as the island’s premier recreational area.