Broadcroft Quarry

In recent times, expansion into the north western area of Broadcroft is taking place to meet the rolling contract for Commonwealth War Graves Commission amongst other projects.

[4] On 13 November 2011, Portland Stone Firms Ltd held a Track 'n' Trail Enduro Event in the working part of the quarry.

Spanning 7.3 hectares (18 acres), the project of restoring the area involved care in returning natural herb-rich flora and scrub to the landscape, which in turn brought many indigenous birds, butterflies and insects.

With the use of innovative surface-scraping, the team management have re-recreated the conditions needed by the silver-studded blue butterfly and the black ants with which it is associated.

In April–May 2011, a conservation team from Weymouth spent six weeks snipping, sawing and burning unwanted scrubby bushes at the nature reserve at Broadcroft Quarry in order to improve the habitats for butterflies and moths.

The group also worked with a digger to scrape off the surface on part of the reserve to create the bare-ground habitat that the rare silver-studded blue butterfly needs to survive.

[8] The reserve features a wide range of plants and animals – mainly insects, also hosting flora and fauna specific to limestone soil.

The stony, calcareous soil supports a herb-rich flora with local plants such as bee and pyramidal orchids, cyperus sedge, yellow vetchling, autumn gentian, tutsan, wild madder, tree-mallow, dwarf gorse and ivy broomrape.

[10] Aside from insects, which include the meadow grasshopper, migrant birds are also found in the area, either arriving or leaving via Portland.