WORK UNDERWAY ON CREATION OF NEW 'MITIGATION' HABITAT FOR WETLAND BIRDS

The site earmarked for feeding and roosting waders and wildfowl (photo: North East Lincolnshire Council)

WORK has started on creation of a dedicated 50-acre wetland habitat for wading birds and wildfowl. 

Located on the Humber Bank, just outside Grimsby, it will be named Novartis Ings in gratitude to Swiss multinational chemical and pharmaceuticals Group Novartis which is vacating the adjacent factory at the end of this year after a 70-year presence.

Says the company's Grimsby chief, Ian Johnson: "Novartis is delighted to leave a lasting legacy towards this important project for the environment.  

"We are enjoying watching the field transform into a wetland habitat, and the project will ensure our contribution and connection is remembered."

The site will not be a nature reserve open to the public but what is known as a 'mitigation site', created to compensate for nearby bird habitat likely to be lost to industrial development.  

To be managed by North East Lincolnshire Council, it will complement another mitigation site, the 100-acre Cress Marsh, Stallingborough, created in 2018. 

Comments NELC leader Cllr Philip Jackson: " I am delighted that this second mitigation site is progressing, and would like to thank Novartis for the land."

The contract is being carried out by  Skegness-based JE Spence and Sons, who created the first Humber mitigation site, and overseen by Roger Wardle, an  expert in wetland design. His other Lincolnshire credits include Middlemarsh, near Burgh-le-Marsh. 

Because of its location right alongside the estuary, it is hoped that Novartis Ings will attract hundreds of godwits, avocets, curlews, redshanks plovers, teal, wigeon and other species including occasional rarities.                                  

Avocet - emblem of the RSPB and one of the long-legged beasties Novartis Ings is expected to attract