Heathland  Restoration

Over the last two years Landmarc has been assigned to assist Surrey Wildlife Trust to restore areas of Ash Ranges (designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest) back to original heathland. This called for the use of heavy machinery used in a sensitive manner.

This meant the selective clearance of trees, Scots Pine, Birch and Willow, in order to create a diverse mosaic of heathland habitats with a scattering of various age classes of tree for wildlife and landscape interest.

Due to the wet ground conditions our excavators were fitted with extra wide track plates and we modified our tracked dumpers to enable them to carry the cut timber to the chipping point over the wet terrain.

To keep ground disturbance to a minimum, two long reach excavators were used together with timber grabs and clearing saw heads. Other excavators were fitted with grabs and Dymax shears for speed and efficiency.

In just 16 days we were able to fell and clear 13 hectares of land, chip and remove all material off site and ensure the removal of all machinery and temporary accommodation to comply with the tight time schedule.

In line with our company environmental policy the 1100 tonne pile of woodchip created from the project was used as sustainable biomass fuel for energy regeneration.

The photographs below show various stages of the project and plant machinery used.