How donations from the public are spent at Abbey Farm

This page describes how money put in the bird hide donations box has been spent. In the first year that the box has been put up, we received about £400. Some of Abbey Farm's conservation work is funded by Government programmes, such as the Countrydie Stewardship Scheme. The donations are spent on work not covered by such programmes.

Some of the money given as donations pays the expenses of the West Norfolk Conservation Volunteers (WNCV). The volunteers themselves do not get paid, but charge a fee per task to cover the group's costs (e.g. purchase and maintenance of tools, publicity and printing). WNCV visit Abbey farm about four times per year. They provide a welcome injection of conservation effort. Their work since Feb 2006 has included:

Hide and car park maintenance. On most of their visits the volunteers sweep the hide path, tidy up the hide and check the car park is clear of low tree branches etc.

Repairing islands. There are two small islands in part of the wetlands. These had become eroded over the years, so were rebuilt using chalk, flint and concrete rubble.

Repairing pond banks. Some pond banks need repairing to allow us to keep water levels high. In addition, we use submerged banks (or bunds) to stop pond sediments flowing back into parts of the ponds we have dug out. These bunds help us create a variety of water depths in the ponds

Other work is carried out by farm staff, who are also involved in most of the tasks listed above. There is also other work such as fence repair, Pink-footed Goose management and tree planting. In Spring 2006 we carried out major repair work on the concrete sluice that controls water levels in front of the hide.