In November 2025, This is Haslemere met Haslemere resident Philippa Guest who is Chair of Haslemere Biodiversity (HB). This voluntary group was formed in 2024 having established a strong track record after completing a biodiversity audit of Haslemere which was published in 2019. This audit had helped provide an evidence base for biodiversity policies in Haslemere’s Neighbourhood Plan and the emerging Haslemere Nature Recovery Strategy.

Philippa explained to us, “Our mission is to develop policies, plans and partnerships to protect, restore and enhance Haslemere’s rich environment for wildlife and people in perpetuity...We are building a platform to share ideas, expertise and best practice and maximise benefits to Haslemere’s wildlife.”

Biodiversity Audit of the Haslemere Ecological Network (HEN)

Philippa and her team initially contracted two ecologists, Gareth Matthes and Giles Sutton, to conduct a desk study of Haslemere’s wildlife assets. They identified the key features of the HEN as including:

· A mix of habitat types: Woodland (48% including 8% Ancient woodland), lowland heathland, the Rivers Wey and Arun and their tributaries, grassland, suburban/urban habitats (31% including roads, buildings and private gardens).

· Over 40 designated nature conservation sites, accounting for 17% of the Parish area.

· Many protected species: >12 bat species, hazel dormouse, nightjar…

· Public open spaces including 16 designated ‘Local Green Spaces’ and 10 ‘Green Fingers’.

· Over 150 wildlife corridors that stitch together the HEN.

The audit results are summarised in a series of maps covering the entire Parish. These HEN maps have been adopted by Waverley Borough Council in Haslemere’s Neighbourhood Plan and must be accounted for in planning applications. As Philippa shared, “References to Haslemere’s wildlife corridors have been used in a positive way to protect bats and dormice. They are an independent voice of the value of wildlife corridors and the impact that development may have on harming wildlife.”

Surveying the HEN

An important next step was to assess the ecological condition of the HEN and identify potential threats as well as opportunities for its longer term resilience and connectivity. To date, baseline botanical surveys have been carried out on over 40 wildlife corridors with opportunities identified for restoring missing or damaged hedgerows, removing invasive non-native species such as cherry laurel and rhododendron, and restoring areas of ancient woodland. Discussions are currently underway with local landowners, the Surrey Wildlife Trust, the Woodland Trust and other voluntary groups to explore how they can take these opportunities forward in 2026.

In 2024, Haslemere Town Council undertook baseline biodiversity audits of 12 Council-owned sites. The audits identified species present, reviewed existing management practices and proposed recommendations for making these sites more wildlife-friendly. The town council is working with the Haslemere Biodiversity team to implement the recommendations. Philippa shared that there is always a balance between recreation/leisure and their biodiversity/wildlife value.

A few projects that have come out of this audit include:

1) Grover’s Garden. In October 2025, a volunteers’ day included the start of the removal of clumps of the non-native cherry laurel that has completely taken over large areas of this site, suppressing the rare acid grassland present.

2) Pocket Park, Lower Street. The plan for this space is to create a green wall along the back wall for pollinators and other wildlife to feed and shelter. They allowed the grass to grow longer in May and June as part of NoMowMay to provide food for pollinators.

3) Churt Road 750m grass verge, a stretch of land owned by the National Trust running parallel to the Golden Valley. The Haslemere Biodiversity team worked with BugLife, The National Trust, Haslemere Town Council and local volunteers to plant a wildflower meadow across this site. This project supports pollinators and other invertebrates as part of Buglife's national  B-lines project. Again, there is a balance between residents preferring closely mown grass to creating something for wildlife.

Haslemere’s Nature Recovery Strategy (HNRS)

The Haslemere Biodiversity team has moved forward with a study of the main opportunities, priorities and actions for nature recovery. Haslemere resident Adam Brown is the Surrey Local Nature Strategy Lead for Surrey Council and has recently produced the draft Surrey Local Nature Recovery Strategy. The HB team is working closely with Adam and his colleagues to  produce a local version for Haslemere - the HNRS. Whilst Haslemere Town Council is not mandated to produce one, this does in itself provide a great springboard for action. Philippa and her team have engaged landowners, local authorities, nature conservation groups, the local community and other stakeholders to develop the strategy and agree  a framework for action based around a series of projects and partnerships with progress regularly monitored and reported. Philippa asserted that this scientifically based approach with the engagement of professional ecologists will help her group with funding applications. It is also helping Haslemere Biodiversity build a reputation for good, solid and credible work and establish strong partnerships with The National Trust, Surrey Wildlife Trust and The Woodland Trust as well as many more organisations.

Haslemere Biodiversity Mini-Projects

a) Grayswood Dormouse Project. This involved the siting of 50 nest boxes with the support of nine landowners. The group monitors numbers and assesses how habitats could be optimised to support dormice populations. They intend to create a register of all sitings in Haslemere with data from other monitoring groups, from developers’ ecology reports (for private land) and also from articles in local papers such as “what the cat brought in”.

b) River Wey Water Vole partnership led by the National Trust and Environment Agency, this is a major multi-year initiative to reintroduce and establish water voles to the Wey catchment after their local extinction. A key reason for their decline is predation by North American mink, which escaped from fur farms in the 20th century, and have been responsible for dramatic reductions in populations of water voles and numerous other species of wildlife.  Work over the past two years has helped to restore habitat conditions suitable for water voles, including removal of local mink populations. This enabled the successful release of around 150 water voles in and around Haslemere in August/September 2025. There is another release planned in Spring 2026.

c) Wildlife Gardening Project. Haslemere Biodiversity has run two events encouraging gardening for wildlife. These have proved very popular and have covered topics such as ponds, bumblebees and swifts. More events will follow.

d) Moth trapping. With Surrey Wildlife, they set up moth traps in allotments and Haslemere Museum’s garden. This was a fun session and more will be scheduled in the future. Sessions like these help collect data and help citizen scientists develop more skills and experience.

e) Swift Project. This is a new project that is about to be launched. As part of Haslemere’s Nature Recovery Strategy, the Haslemere Biodiversity team is identifying flagship species where numbers have declined rapidly. Swift populations across the UK have declined by around 68% since 1994, largely due to the loss of traditional nesting sites as well as falling populations of flying insects and climate change. The team is working on identifying three ‘Swift Streets’ in Haslemere where Swifts are known and will provide artificial nest sites. Locations are still being finalised. They are looking for volunteers of local householders to host a Swift box. There has been a very successful project in Petersfield which has shown to help the Swifts as well as community cohesion.

We face a stark reality; biodiversity is in crisis with the UK already classified as one of the world’s most nature-depleted countries. In Surrey, 11-11.5% of native species are locally extinct, with over 30% rapidly declining – this exceeds the national average. Key causes of decline include habitat loss or fragmentation and climate change. However, we can all take action to help reverse this decline and the work of Haslemere Biodiversity with their various projects supporting wildlife truly deserves high praise.

Haslemere Biodiversity’s Call For Volunteers

This group is looking for volunteers to help with various tasks:

i) Would you like to support the Swift project? Haslemere Biodiversity seeks to have 20 to 30 Swift nest boxes per street and the team is looking for volunteers to help promote the project, recruit households and support community engagement.

ii) Could you be a Citizen Scientist? The team is already well-supported by Surrey Wildlife Trust (SWT) to find Citizen Scientists but they would like more people to be involved. Training is given by Surrey Wildlife Trust.

iii) Could you take on the role of Volunteer Coordinator? This involves harnessing volunteers and directing them to wildlife projects.

iv) Maybe coordinating events is your skill? Could you help plan an annual programme of events and compile all the supporting materials?

v) Are you good at storytelling? Maybe you could use material at Haslemere Museum to document, for example, Haslemere’s rich natural heritage and highlight how nature used to be.

vi) Maybe you could be involved in the Heathlands Connections project? 2% of the Haslemere parish is fragmented heathland. You could work with Surrey Wildlife Trust and other partners to identify the main landowners and help restore key heathland wildlife corridors in the north of the Parish.

vii) Do you love trees? Perhaps you could be involved with the Haslemere Tree Mapping project to create an inventory of the town’s ancient, veteran and notable trees.

Check out Haslemere Biodiversity online and contact the team directly to offer support:

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Photo credit: Kathryn Killner, Surrey Dormouse Group