CPRE celebrates hedgerow campaign success

The Berkshire Branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) is celebrating a major policy success after this week’s announcement by the Government that it has set a national target to help farmers and landowners create thousands of miles of new hedgerows.

Under the Government’s new Environmental Improvement Plan, ministers have committed to create or restore 30,000 miles of hedgerows a year by 2037, and 45,000-miles a year by 2050. The target underpins aims to restore England’s hedgerow network and puts farmers at the heart of the mission to reconnect nature in this country.

The new policy is a major achievement for CPRE, which has been campaigning to persuade MPs to agree to promote wildlife conservation and biodiversity through a national policy to plant more hedgerows. “Restoring our network of hedgerows has been a priority for CPRE’s campaigning work in the countryside over the last year,” explains Greg Wilkinson, Chairman of CPRE Berkshire.

“It is amazing,” Greg adds, “that what CPRE has secured from ministers this week is a binding commitment to the first ever national hedgerow-planting target. To have achieved this new policy from ministers is testament to the efforts of CPRE volunteers and to the thousands of people who have signed our hedgerow petitions.”

CPRE Berkshire will be working with other environmental groups to provide opportunities for supporters to get involved in hedgerow planting and restoration projects in Berkshire later this year. To find out more, and to support CPRE’s campaign work for our local countryside, please go to the charity’s website www.cpreberkshire.org.uk and follow CPRE Berkshire on Twitter and Facebook.