Cotswold Water Park
The Cotswold Water Park is the United Kingdom's largest marl lake system, straddling the Wiltshire–Gloucestershire border, north-west of Cricklade and south of Cirencester.
The lakes were created in the second half of the 20th century by extraction of glacial Jurassic limestone gravel, which had eroded from the Cotswold Hills, and these filled naturally from rivers and streams after workings began to be exhausted in the early 1970s.
[3] Information may be found in detailed maps of locations and facilities,[1] the Local Biodiversity Action Plan[4] and other publications produced by the Cotswold Lakes Trust.
[5] It is that part of the Upper Thames catchment in North Wiltshire and south Gloucestershire which has been subjected to over 50 years of sand and gravel extraction.
Restoration schemes for many of the active mineral workings are taking into account the vital function of these flood water storage areas, as well as creating an important habitat for a number of Local and UK Biodiversity Action Plan species (LBAP and UKBAP).
[10] All these sites are important refuges and breeding grounds for several species of bats, dragonflies, damselflies, birds, mammals, fish, butterflies and other invertebrates.
Management of all CWPT reserves incorporates requirements for these priority species and habitats, and serves to enhance and protect their sustainability.
Regular surveys and monitoring are carried out by Trust staff and volunteers, and results fed into the national biodiversity reporting framework.
It was excavated 40 years ago, was given to the Cotswold Water Park Trust in 2002 and was declared a Local Nature Reserve (LNR) in 2003.
The extraction of the First Terrace Pleistocene gravels left behind an unusually deep lake, which is sealed by beds of Kellaway clay.
[3] It is a breeding site for birds including reed bunting, tufted duck, black-headed gull and great crested grebe.
The designation recognised the nationally scarce downy-fruited sedge (Carex tomentosa) and snake's head fritillary.
There are four nature reserves called Whelford Pools, Edward Richardson & Phyllis Amey, Roundhouse Lake and Bryworth Lane.
The site was purchased by the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust in 1979 with grant aid from the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF).
There are good numbers reported of tufted duck, pochard, coot, mallard and Canada geese wintering on the site.
The site is a breeding area for tufted duck and great crested grebe along with kingfisher, reed bunting and sedge warbler.
[3] There are a number of seasonal ponds and a wide variety of mature natural habitats have grown up around the edges including scrub, wet woodland, marsh, and reedbed.
Marshland plants include tufted forget-me-not, water mint, pink water-speedwell, common spike-rush, amphibious bistort and the rare greater tussock-sedge.
Resident birds include common moorhens, Eurasian coots, mallards, great crested grebes and tufted ducks and herons fish the northern lake.
Scrub and willow carr provide nesting sites for sedge warblers, whitethroats, Eurasian wrens and common chaffinches.
[19] The Bryworth Lane reserve (grid reference SP200007) is a 0.6-hectare (1.5-acre) site between Lechlade and Fairford to the west of the minor road to Southrop.
The line ran along the southern boundary of the Edward Richardson and Phyllis Amey reserve and was closed in the early 1960s.
[3] The grassland flora is made up of a wide range of limestone-loving plants which include field scabious, lady's bedstraw, common bird's-foot-trefoil and oxeye daisy.
[3] The reserve supports butterflies such as brown argus, small copper, marbled white and purple hairstreak; some 21 species have been recorded.
The Society's Chief Executive of the time, Dennis Grant, was imprisoned in 2011 for defrauding the organisation of more than £650,000,[25] and the trust was subsequently relaunched as a registered charity working for the benefit of people and wildlife in the area.
