Together with the village environment group we ran a working party to help remove a garden escape from the Middle Lane pond in Brassington. The pond, which has 3 rare water plants as well as water shrew, frog and smooth newt, was being taken over by vigorous growth of a variegated form of Glyceria maxima. After a previous working party by the village group, we joined them to try and remove as much of the plant and its roots as possible. Although there will be regrowth especially along the walled edge where it was almost impossible to remove the roots, it will have greatly reduced the density of this plant in the coming year. A few early frogs were found in the pond but spawning still hasn't happened yet in the Peak District.

Work has started today with a contractor to clear out the Typha dominated dewpond at Hoe Grange Farm. The pond that supports great crested & smooth newts, common toad and common frog was last cleaned out in the 1980s but for the last decade has been choked with Typha and is badly silted. Derbyshire ARG has had a couple of back-breaking working parties in the decade and managed to clear small areas around the edge to keep some open water but the dense growth in the centre remained and rapidly covers the cleared areas. With support from ARG UK 100% fund we have employed an experienced dewpond maintenance and restoration contractor who has restored many dewponds in the nearby Peak District National Park to clear the whole pond. In addition we are facilitating the clearance of another large depond that has completely silted up on a neighbouring farm and hopefully the restoration of another nearby dewpond that has been dry for over 40 years.

Thanks to the volunteers who helped with the clearance of the farm dewpond just outside the Peak National Park boundary in mid February. Due to the depth of the pond and the thickness of the mat of Typha covering virtually the entire pond only a belt around half the margin of the pond was cleared using hand tools lent by the Derby City Pond Wardens Association. This has created a belt of open water around about half of the pond for the 2019 amphibian season. (See the photo gallery page) 

It is proposed to go back this spring to survey for amphibians using the pond which when last surveyed held common toad, great crested and smooth newts. In addition we are investigating how to clean out the remainder of the pond to fully restore it. It is over 35 years since the dewpond was last fully cleared out by an excavator after which the great crested newt population quickly expanded to take advantage of the open water then available on the pond.

Our work party planned for Saturday 19th January had to be called off when the Peak District was hit by snow the previous evening. The pond was already frozen from the frosts the previous few nights but the farmer said you couldn't see the ice for the couple of inches of snow on top! We hope to re-schedule it for mid February.

This was organised by ARG UK and the National Trust and held in early October 2018 in Shropshire. There was a large attendance of Land Mangers and volunteers from across the Midlands and from the Humberhead Peatlands NNR in Yorkshire. A staff member and volunteer from each of the National Trust and the Eastern Moors Partnership in Derbyshire attended and heard presentations from Herefordshire and Derbyshire ARGs following which the National Trust led a field visit to an adder site to demonstrate the managements works that were being done to conserve adders.