Welcome to the end of year newsletter, which summarises the key achievements of the work groups under the expert guidance of our ranger Garry Meyer.

While the year started very wet, the good weather later in the year and the introduction of mid week work sessions, has enabled us to take on a larger range of tasks.

• Housekeeping
  • The key housekeeping task is litter picks, in 2016 these were highlighted by joining the national cleaning session supporting 'Clean for the Queen' before her 90^th birthday where 16 large sacks of rubbish including bottles, cans and wrappers were removed from the copse along with furniture and litter from a disused camp. Several other litter picks were carried out during the year, in order to ensure the copse stays tidy.

• General maintenance jobs
• Cutting back growth encroaching the wooden steps leading from the twitten from Woodland Avenue to the Coronation silver birches.
• Removing the supporting posts from the young coronation silver birches. Planted in 2010 to repopulate the coronation grove.
• Cutting back growth encroachment on the bridleway. (As reduced council budgets means this work is very low priority).

• Renovation projects
• Removing the undergrowth around and below the bench at the top of the clearing, thus restoring the sea view from this bench. (This project will need further work in 2017 to enable the council tractor to cut the new area around/ below the bench.)

Photo 1: Cleared bench at the top of the clearing

• Laying chalk beds, with a wood chip top surface, on the upper paths across the top of the copse to create an all weather surface and reduce need to walk on the boggy grass. This was a heavy manual project as over 50 hippo bags (80 tonnes) of chalk were laid. We need to thank the community payback teams of Surrey and Sussex Probation service for providing the labour for this project, and Garry, our ranger, for managing it.
• Weeded and cleared overgrowth around the Queen's Diamond Jubilee copper beech.
• Weeded and cleared overgrowth around the Queen's Coronation silver birches grove at the bottom of the grass area revealing the dedication stone. This area is now on the council mowing schedule and so will stay clear.

Photo 2: Friends of 3 Cornered Copse tackling the Queen's Coronation Silver Birches

Photo 3: Queen's Coronation Silver Birches after clearing and mowing

• Replaced noticeboard at the top of the copse, by Dyke Road Avenue. This was made from recycled materials by our ranger Garry. On the agenda is to replace the noticeboard on the twitten between Woodland Drive and Woodland Avenue.

Photo 4: New noticeboard by Dyke Road Avenue

• Improvement projects
• To encourage biodiversity in the copse. This is a long term project and we have started this by clearing and thinning woodland area at the top end (near Dyke Road Avenue) of the copse to remove unwanted elders, sycamores and brambles to encourage growth of the Hazel, Beech, Yew and Spindleberry. The area looks a lot more open and will hopefully encourage woodland floor plants to flourish in the spring. This work will continue in 2017 in more of the copse woodland.

Photo 5: Upper plantation thinned and cleared

Looking forward into 2017, the plan is to continue with the ongoing projects, as well as creating a new seating area in the middle of the open area after the last bench was removed, due to it being made unsafe by vandalism. This seating area will not be funded by the council, so we are currently reviewing a number of options and any ideas/ funding options would be welcome.

We are a very friendly group who would love to meet new members to help on our workdays. The next workday will be on the Saturday 4^th March, supporting the Great British Spring Clean. Meet at 10am by the Coronation Birches, weather permitting. Please check our website for more details.

threecorneredcopse.org.uk

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