Communities
Tarmac Landfill Communities Fund 2022
“Restoring heathland habitat is particularly important, so we were keen to support Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust with this project through the Tarmac Landfill Communities Fund. It is not only important to us that we restore our own sites to a high standard, but we are also keen to help other organisations with their restoration projects where we can.”
Enrique Moranmontero, national restoration manager at Tarmac
At Tarmac we are committed to being a good neighbour and playing our part in enabling local communities to thrive. As part of this, we’re proud to support projects benefitting people and the environment in the areas in which we operate.
The Landfill Communities Fund enables landfill operators, like us, to donate part of their annual tax liability to enrolled environmental bodies for a variety of valuable community and environmental projects.
Through the fund, we donate around £1 million each year to projects throughout England. In 2022, we donated £1,342,126 to 52 different projects. Here are a few highlights from the year:
Tarmac helped with the building of bespoke nesting cabinets at Stanford Reservoir, near Rugby, through a £5,700 grant. This grant enabled the Stanford Ringing Group (SRG) to establish a new 10m2 nesting area at the reservoir, comprising two large nesting cabinets with accommodation for 96 nests and a new area planted with invertebrate-friendly flower species.
The project aims to encourage sand martins – a threatened species in the UK – to return to the area to breed, and boosts biodiversity, especially for butterflies. Each year, sand martins return to breed in vertical sandy banks at – for example, quarries and even golf courses – but they have become scarce around Stanford Reservoir.
Peter Norrie of the SRG, said: “We really look forward to having sand martin using these cabinets and are sure that all visitors will enjoy the sight of breeding sand martins swooping over the water at Stanford in 2022.”
Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust received just over £12,000 from the Tarmac Landfill Communities Fund towards a project to restore two hectares of rare heathland habitat at Hertford Heath nature reserve. The project aims to address the decline and secure the future of this endangered habitat and associated species it supports, increasing biodiversity and enhancing the natural environment.
Hertford Heath nature reserve is one of very few patches of surviving heathland in Hertfordshire which supports a special mix of wildlife. Heathland habitat is currently endangered and in decline, with over 80% disappearing in the last 200 years. This decline has resulted in several heathland dependent species becoming locally extinct in the country.
Ian Carle, nature reserves manager at Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust, said: “We are really pleased with the work funded by Tarmac – scrapes carried out to remove vegetation and topsoil have already led to these areas being colonised by heathland plants, whilst felling and scrub removal works have helped us to increase the area of open heathland.”
