We had a very busy year this spring and summer visiting sites that are on the Burnet floodplain meadow (MG4) and Marsh marigold - crested dog's-tail (MG8) plant community inventories that no one from the Partnership had been to before. This work is kindly funded through the Foundation for the Third Millennium and will last for the next two years. The inventories originally came from Natural England and Natural Resources Wales and we have added to the lists as we have visited sites over the years that weren't already on there.
We also carried out an exercise earlier this year with an OU work experience student (Simon White - very many thanks), who checked the accuracy of the inventory in terms of location data and then added to it by mapping the Priority Habitat Inventory and the SSSI layers against the floodplain extent layers, to see if we could pick up more meadows in the floodplain that were not on the list. Mostly there was good cross over, but a few new sites have also sprung up.
By Autumn 2025, we had 399 sites listed in the combined MG4 and MG8 inventory, covering approximately 2345 ha. This area estimate is very approximate and we hope to try and refine it through this process. By that point, we had visited more than 155 of those sites, covering approximately1657 ha of the total area. The majority of this fell within the suite of MG4 communities.
Location of MG4 and MG8 sites the FMP haven't visited in England and Wales.
Therefore we have a plan to visit sites as per the schedule of:
2026 – 23 new sites (done)
2027 – 22 new sites (currently planning)
2028 – 39 new sites
We identified two areas to prioritise in 2026, where there were good numbers of sites not visited and where we wanted to build relationships and links. These were Warwickshire, and Norfolk.
We were shown around some fabulous sites in Warwickshire and Solihul including spending some time underneath the flightpath of Birmingham airport looking at some wonderful burnet-filled fields, and Bickenhill Meadows SSSI. many thanks to Solihul Borough Council and Warwickshire Wildlife Trust for your invaluable support. In Norfolk, we visited a number of really spectacular sites with very interesting management histories, meeting people from Norfolk Wildlife Trust, Natural England, Norfolk Rivers Trust and Norfolk City Council. Thanks to all of you for your help in sorting out acces and your very helpful insights into site management and history. In total we visited 23 sites this year.
For 2027, we are looking at Yorkshire, West Midlands, Wales, Somerset, Cumbria, Hampshire and Oxfordshire and are already talking to local contacts to determine what interest there is in joining us, or helping us with this exercise, and of course seeking access permission. If we have not already been in touch and you think you might be interested, please do get in touch.
Bickenhill Meadows SSSI - Solihul
Floodgates Meadow Solihul
Monkspath Meadow SSSI Solihul
Flordan Common SSSI - Norfolk
Marston Marshes - Norfolk City Council (restoration fields)
