Letters

Dave,

In the last issue of the magazine you made a passing reference to a grant for work on the Dyke without really explaining what will be done.

By way of explanation I offer the following account of events as I remember them

Cambridgeshire County Council, English Nature and National Heritage have succeeded in obtaining a Lottery grant of £305,000 for a five year project in order to restore the Dyke to it's original state.

The consensus view being that the Dyke was originally constructed across open grassland and formed a barrier which connected the Suffolk woodlands and the boggy fenland. The dyke would therefore have appeared as a large hump in undulating open chalk downland which was grazed by sheep and the like. As there is now very little open grassland in Cambridgeshire (and the rest of East Anglia) the Dyke represents a unique habitat and this has resulted in the Dyke being granted International Site of Special Scientific Interest status (ISSSI not a mere SSSI).

Whatever the historical background the object of all this is to return the Dyke to an open grass mound and ditch, which will look like the high part of the dyke just south of the Burwell / Swaffham Prior road. The boundaries will be more defined and the whole area will be grazed by sheep. To accomplish this all of the Dyke will be cleared of trees and scrub, including the mature wooded area between Wood Ditton and Newmarket Golf club and racecourse which will be worked on first.

This was the plan that was presented to a very self-congratulatory meeting held on a November Saturday morning last year. Due to an oversight by the organisers only one or two Parish councillors knew of the meeting and even fewer other folk. I believe only one person from Wood Ditton came.

As a result of questions from those of us who did go, the main proposer of the project has agreed to come to the Village in order to tell us of their plans BEFORE any work is carried out. They seemed surprised that not everyone knew of their plan and even more surprised that not everyone shared their enthusiasm for the project. However they did admit that their plans were not finalised yet and they were willing to listen to other opinions.

Please look out for any notices as what is proposed will greatly affect the appearance of our village.

Tony Jordan

Thank you Tony for that explanation

Dave