East Kent Valleys

The East Kent Valleys Group is made up of over 30 farms and encompasses the valleys and countryside around Dover, Folkestone and the Elham Valley.
To date around 200ha of wildflower meadows have been created from arable land and 400ha of existing grass-dominated grasslands are being restored. Native provenance wildflower seeding has been sown on 133ha to enhance the natural colonisation of species over time. The area is home to some of the earliest green hay spreading projects undertaken as part of the project work and dating back to the early 2000's.
Butterflies such as adonis blue, chalk hill blue, small blue and silver spotted skipper are now being found on these new grasslands and more widely across the project area using these new areas for foraging and roosting and, in some cases, breeding.
Serotine bat is widely found across the valleys making use of the insect abundant grasslands for larger insect prey.