This project ran from 1st August 2004 to 31st March 2005.  A grant was awarded to Shropshire County Council by English Nature through DEFRA's Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund (ALSF).  The project primarily dealt with the enhancement of biodiversity in three Shropshire Quarries.

Summary results for this work are given below:

A summary of the work carried out at Llynclys as part of this project includes:

• Calcareous grassland – 1.7ha restored through clearance of birch and willow scrub.
  
  Scrub clearance work has been carried out with specialist guidance to maximise the benefit to Lepidoptera, in particular the Grizzled Skipper (Pyrgus malvae) as Llynclys Quarry is the best site in Shropshire for this species.
   
• Calcareous grassland – 5.1ha brought into appropriate grazing.
   
• Hedgerow – 90m of new native species hedgerow created
  
• Permanent pool – creation of a 30x20m pool was attempted but ground conditions mean this has been delayed until conditions are drier.
  
• Bats - 27 woodcrete bat boxes have been placed on trees and cliff faces throughout the quarry. 2 large hibernation boxes have been fixed to suitable quarry faces.
  

Habitat creation work:

Heathland creation – Two areas totalling 0.72 ha were seeded with cut heather from a local SSSI. One of these areas was fenced to prevent sheep grazing. The other area was in Common Land and will be used to determine if heather can establish in the presence of grazing sheep.

• Volunteers from the Ludlow branch of the Shropshire Wildlife Trust spread cut heather over the donor site. This site was later fenced off.
  
• Heather spreading at the unfenced site which, as you can see, is very close to the quarry works.
  
• Wetland Creation – a small dam was created in a drainage ditch for an ephemeral pool in an area fenced off for heathland creation. This pool should now retain water throughout summer.
  

Thanks to Hanson Aggregates and the Clee Hill Commoners Association for allowing this work to take place and to the Shropshire Wildlife Trust and others for the volunteer labour force - namely: Andy Vanderhook, Jenny Vanderhook, Michael Tomkinson, Gareth Thomas, David Currant, Ruth Henshaw, Sue Swales and Dan Wrench.

At Blakeway Hollow a project to restore the calcareous grassland was being planned by the National Trust.  This national, and local, priority habitat is particularly uncommon in Shropshire with Wenlock Edge and the Oswestry uplands being the only areas where fragments remain. Species-rich grassland in a former quarry, part of Wenlock Edge SSSI, was being lost to scrub.  Due to the sensitivity of the ground flora this project employed manual cutting of scrub. Scrub was only removed from areas where the ground flora was likely to recover.  An estimated 1.6 hectares of calcareous grassland is expected to benefit from this work.

The work at Poles Coppice was organised by the Countryside Service.  It was planned in order to clear geologically important rock faces and to restore the open conditions for the interesting ground flora and possible Adder populations. Adders are known at the outskirts of this site and future survey work will take into account this site. The Adder is being considered for inclusion in the Shropshire BAP review.  The work at this quarry had been planned by the Countryside Service but was waiting for a source of funds.

Both these former quarries are within a kilometre of working quarries.  It is hoped that by maintaining early stage successional vegetation communities at the old quarries suitable seed sources will be available for colonisation of restored areas in the working quarries.