On the 29th June 2018 Hardwick Green Meadows was officially opened and we had an extremely hot but very enjoyable day. We met and thanked many people who contributed to our appeal to buy the reserve as well as some of the local community – we brought lots of people together to explain why these wonderful meadows are so important and to listen to what they had to tell us about the area.

With the help from Colin, our Director, Rob, David and Chris, our reserves team and Michael, our Local Wildlife Sites Officer, we put on walks and talks all day. We walked across the new bridges, which were kindly funded by private donors Tim and Anne, and had some great feedback from everyone; all were happily exhausted at the end of the day.

Malvern local group organised a walk the week before and we were lucky enough to find fresh otter spraint and a lovely red kite hovered over our heads to celebrate the end of the walk. The meadows did what they do best and put on a beautiful display of great burnet, corky-fruited water dropwort and pepper saxifrage to name a few.

Both days were times to learn but also to stand and listen to the huge variety of bird and insects as well as take a step back in time to when these floodplain meadows were part of everyone’s lives. I think I can say we all felt the richer for it.

I'm looking forward to getting stuck into the project including oral history, historical research, working with local schools, organising a bioblitz next year, developing a Sustrans cycle route, doing research with university students and much more!  Keep popping back to find out how the project is developing.