BADGERGATE
The Gwent Badger Group have been asked to assist
the Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) and Monmouthshire
County Council (MCC) in temporarily closing down a badger
sett so vital road works can be carried out on a road in Llangwm.
The
road is well overdue for a facelift and need resurfacing but
the only thing stopping the work was a hole in the hedgerow
indicating a badger sett so MCC contacted the CCW who laid
out the conditions for a licence to be issued to the Group
by MCC.
Acting
as agents for MCC the Group are now responsible for imposing
a temporary closure of the sett by means of a Badger Gate
which will need to be in place until the work is finished.
Unfortunately
badgers can interfere with and slow down road works and building
developments in rural areas such as this and people can get
impatient and angry that this little critter is responsible
and this leads to problems, there are still people who do
not understand that the badger is protected by law and take
matters into their own hands.
When
members of the group arrived to install the gate they found
that somebody had found another method of keeping the badgers
away and filled the hole with rubble and turf, the group stresses
that this is against the law and will lead to a proscecution
if the person/s responsible come to light.
So
if you need to have construction work carried out on land
and there is a badger sett there call your local council and
they will help you, in our case MCC contacted CCW and obtained
the advice needed and issued a licence to interfere with a
badger sett to the group, even we cannot work unlicenced so
please do the right thing.
How
does this work?
The
gate is a metal two way gate in a metal frame, the ground
around the hole to be shut is cleared and made slightly bigger
to accommodate the gate which is then hammered in to block
the hole and wire fencing is then placed around the outside
to stop the badgers from digging back in once the gate has
been closed.
The
gate will remain in a two way position for a period of a week
and for the last few days of that week a small amount of sand
will be placed at the entrance to look for signs of activity
and then after a week the gate will be put into a one way
position so that the badgers cannot get back in, this then
make the hole inactive for a period until the gate is removed.
Here
are some photos taken of the work carried out by the group.
Click
Here for Gallery
