We scrubbed up well on Sheepcote Valley

After bagging a 5k parkrun at East Brighton Park, the Good Gym team took to the hills to help clear scrub.

What is scrub and why do we need to clear it? The scrub clearance we did today helped reduce the blackthorn and hawthorn that has taken over the area. The aim is to return the Valley to chalk grassland where sheep can graze. In turn the sheep’s habit of dunging during the night ensures a net flow of nutrients off the grassland. This produces a very rich plant life, where no one species can become dominant. There may be as many as 40 species found in a square metre, some very rare. The various species of blue butterflies and many other invertebrates are dependent on these communities of plants.

Before we got started, Lindsay the Park Ranger took us through a quick health and safety session where we learnt how to use all the tools, including the mysterious 'tree popper'. The tree popper is a large hand tool that you use to get right under the tree root to remove the whole bush by the roots. That stops re-growth and means, less work next time we come up here (save the date - Saturday February 18th)

Good Gymers sawed, tree popped and piled up a mass of scrub that will be made into a bonfire once it's dried out a bit.

Two hours later and warmed by the 5k run, brilliant sunshine, hard work and great company, we headed back down the Valley and home.