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• First time winner: Young nature reserve is blooming

• Date:

  17th July 2008

• Contact:

  Sarah Egerton

• Organisation:

  The Civic Trust

St. Wulstan’s Local Nature Reserve is a first time Green Flag Award winner this year, comprising 22.25 ha of grassland, scrub and woodland adjacent to Upper Welland village towards the southern end of the Malvern Hills, Worcestershire.

The area now designated as the Reserve formed, from the 1940’s to 1994, part of the St. Wulstan’s hospital and its grounds.  The hospital was originally built to accommodate wounded American soldiers returning form the D-Day landings, and later became a TB and then a psychiatric hospital. 

In the early 1990s, following the hospital’s closure, local campaigners fought to prevent the whole of the site being developed as housing and succeeded in their wish to see part of the hospital site saved for wildlife and community use.

In 1994 buildings on the site were demolished, however many of the trees planted during the hospitals history can still be seen on the site today.

Sitting within the Malvern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the site, owned by Malvern Hills District Council, was designated as a Local Nature Reserve in April 1997.  A local community group managed the Reserve but were struggling to give it the attention it needs.  In 2004, under a service level agreement with the District, Worcestershire County Council Countryside Service took on management of the site.

With payment from a section 10 6 agreement, a significant investment from the ODPM Liveability fund and the ongoing support and direct involvement of the local community, much needed work to improve access and manage the habitats has taken place.  Information panels and a self-guided trail have been installed.  A new management plan has been written and its visions: To enhance St. Wulstan’s Local Nature Reserve as a mosaic of habitats to optimise its biodiversity, whilst maintaining links with the historic use of the site as a hospital; and, to manage the Reserve as an area for quiet informal recreation and learning, and enhance community involvement in the care of the Reserve are being achieved.

Volunteers have had a big role to play in the Reserve since it first opened in 1997 with an enthusiastic group of local people taking ‘ownership’ of the site and assisting first Malvern Hills and now the Countryside Service in managing it. They have been running regular work parties as well as working as individuals down on the reserve.

Judges commented: ‘Very pleasant to visit. Interesting to see what is a young local nature reserve in development. Dedicated staff and volunteers. A commitment to ongoing improvement and seeing through the necessary changes to achieve it.

Dan Barnett: Dan Barnett, Senior Countryside Sites Officer, tel: 01905 766155