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MINE WASTE LWS, CRONTON. KNOWSLEY.      SJ471891 (Sat Nav. WA8 5QN)

Sat 11 June 2016.   Leader: Dave Earl

Weather: 17°C. Mostly cloudy, scattered showers with a warm high of 21° Data from Foreca

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Behind the locked gates of Cronton Colliery you encounter a 43 hectare derelict landscape since the closure of the pit in 1984 and British Coal (formerly National Coal Board) ceased operations on the site in 1990. It was then acquired by English Partnerships as part of the National Coalfield Programme. In 1995 the site was partially restored by removing both the colliery infrastructure and major earthworks, and then reclaiming colliery spoil by mixing it with paper mill crumb (provided by Bridgewater newsprint mill in Ellesmere Port) and sewage cake to create soils for successful woodland planting. The colliery site’s ownership was transferred to the Northwest Development Agency in 1999 and then passed to the Land Trust in the summer of 2010.

The former colliery, which forms the main body of the site, is defined by belts of mature deciduous woodland planting around its south and eastern site boundaries, alongside Cronton Road and Fox’s Bank Lane.  A 5 foot high sandstone wall also delineates these boundaries.  The mature woodland of the Local Wildlife Site (“LWS”) forms the south-western boundary of the site whereas the north western edge is characterised by less established blocks of young woodland planting.

Dave Earl led 12 members of the Liverpool Botanical Society and officers from Biodiverse Society to the west of the potential car park area where we found the Mine Waste LWS of 2.8 hectares, comprising a predominantly deciduous, mature woodland area and colliery shale through which Fox’s Bank Brook and associated wetland, lagoons, ponds and meadow grassland vegetation meanders in an east/west direction.  A separate pond is located on the southern edge of the SBI, alongside Cronton Road and a mix of dry and wet acid grasslands is present around the ponds and to the south.

Species List:

Sources: North Merseyside Local Wildlife Sites accessed from Merseyside Biobank; New Visitor Destination and Public Open Space at Cronton Colliery, Land Trust, and Field visit. HH@MBAN