Our heathland restoration work may start with tree and scrub clearance. This can involve timber extraction, chipping or mulching of brash followed by stump grinding or stump removal. We have tractor and excavator mounted stump grinders. Following stump grinding litter stripping is usually undertaken using excavators. We carry out litter stripping using excavators with tiltrotators or tilt buckets to allow us to sensitively remove the litter and turf and ensure that the exisitng topography remains intact. This also reduces the impact on underlying unkown archaeology. Material from the litter stripping is then either directly placed on bunds or hauled to disposal locations with dumpers. Haulage of spoil is carried out in a manner as to restrict rutting and excessive ground damage. We regularly use dumpers with low ground pressure tyres to reduce the impact.

Many of the heathland sites we work on have a varied history from early periods up to more recent military use. We take extreme care to ensure archaeology isn't damaged and that the risk from unexploded ordnance is mitigated. This can involve working with the client and employing the services of an archaeologist and companies to investigate the presence of ordnance.

We can seed heathland after restoration with either flail collected vegetation or collected seed from a donor site. We have machinery suitable for both methods of seed collection.

Heathland Maintenance

Whether we have restored a heathland or are working on an existing heathland we can offer post restoration and routine maintenance. This may include scattered scrub clearance, cutting and collecting of vegetation, herbicide application and ground disturbance.

Heathland Restoration
Pine clearfell before restoration	Brash chipping	Timber extraction
Tractor mounted stump grinding	Stump extraction	Excavator mounted stump grinding
Brash, stump and scrub mulching	Litter loading	Tracking in profiled litter bund
Litter stripping	Unloading litter	Profiled litter bund
Restoration of Croxton Heath
Heathland Maintenance
Mulching gorse	Vacuuming mulched gorse	Chipping scattered cut gorse
Moving cut gorse with Pasquali and buck rake	Cutting and windrowing gorse with Berky reciprocating cutter	Loading and burning cut gorse with excavator and fire sledge
Mulching scrub regrowth with compact tractor on archaeological feature	Flail collecting of gorse regrowth	Spot spray bracken on restored heathland
Cutting and collecting an area of arable conversion to heathland	Stump clearance from an area of deep ploughed heathland	Brushcollecting heather seed