Biodiversity Action Plan

Hay Meadows

In the Peak District there are approximately 1120 hectares of hay meadows, fragmented across the whole area.

Hay meadows are a rapidly declining resource. In the Peak District National Park 50% were lost between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s. Follow-up surveys indicated a further 25% loss and/or decline in quality from 1995 to 1998.

The longest established hay meadows support a great variety of wildlife interest including ox-eye daisy, hay rattle, meadow vetchling and common knapweed. They also provide an important habitat for skylark and twite.

Perhaps the greatest threat to hay meadows is the loss of traditional management techniques. Increasing the nutrients to increase agricultural productivity drastically reduces the mixture of grasses and flowers to create low diversity bright green fields without that splash of colour we know and love. This is one focus of the Vision Project which has been working with land owners and managers to encourage a return to traditional management and hay meadow restoration by harvesting and spreading seeds.

A programme of identification and conservation of the highest quality Peak District hay meadows began with the Hay Meadows Project in 1995. The production of the Meadows beyond the Millennium report helped to highlight both the loss of hay meadows in the late 20th century and the issues surrounding their conservation.

Natural England in partnership with Derbyshire Wildlife Trust and the National Park Authority have identified a number of sites as candidate Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) and have notified two of these at Hurdlow and Sparrowpit. Thanks to this process the future of these sites is now secure.

Significant effort has also gone into the negotiation of positive management at the other candidate SSSI hay meadows in the National Park and all are now secured within an appropriate management agreement.

Hay meadows action plan (310KB)