Burnham Beeches Management Plan 2010 - the City of London ...

1 Site Description - access and visitors; current use
1.6.4 Education and Research
School and college groups regularly visit the
Beeches to learn about management and
conservation. Local schools are occasionally
involved in arts projects such as the sensory trail
and tree dressing days.
Student and other research projects are
encouraged and the staff and volunteers also
carry out long term monitoring for the benefit of
the site and to contribute to regional and
national programmes. Examples of these are
butterfly transects, moth trapping, vegetation
and lichen recording, dust monitoring and the
weather station.
Burnham Beeches is a part of the Environmental
Change Biodiversity Surveillance Network,
contributing to a national picture of ecosystem
health and the changes happening to protected
sites across Britain.
1.6.5 Other Estate Features
Infrastructure on Burnham Beeches includes
fences to contain the current grazing animals
and several shelters for visitors that date back to
the early 20th century, some of which have been
updated more recently. Services such as
electrical and telephone cables also run
underground in several places. Buildings consist
of the information point, café and toilet block on
the Main Common, the office and associated
barns and seven staff houses. There are
numerous small bridges and several stretches of
boardwalk to assist visitors.
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1.7 Current Use What Do You Like Most?
Under the Open Spaces “Splashing in
Act Burnham Beeches is puddles!”
2009 public consultation
required to be managed
for informal recreational activities and for what
we now term conservation. Obligations of the
status of Burnham Beeches as a SSSI, NNR and
SAC, as well as other legal obligations such as
the NERC Act require positive management for
nature conservation. It is considered that, with
careful management and the cooperation of site
visitors there need be no major conflict between
these two main uses of Burnham Beeches.
In the past the Beeches was an essential part of
village life, providing fuel and grazing for
livestock. It still supports the local economy,
creating opportunities for local businesses and
contractors and may even, in the future, once
more find a market for its natural resources.