Country diary: one small step, but one giant leap for insect-kind

Claxton, Norfolk: A single square metre left unmown attracts more than 50 species

This spring Rotherham borough council received deserved praise for the banks of native flowers it now allows to flourish on its verges. During this period I noted how most main roadsides across Norfolk had been turned brown with herbicide spray, although presently the dual carriageway around Norwich has slopes awash with the colours of wild perennials.

In our parish our small green, which is barely 15m by 100m, is mown according to the unthinking orthodoxy that prevails across much of civic Britain. It’s a waste of money, fuel and resources, but does it really matter to wildlife that the patch is reduced every fortnight to shorn turf?

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Country diary: one small step, but one giant leap for insect-kind

Claxton, Norfolk: A single square metre left unmown attracts more than 50 species

This spring Rotherham borough council received deserved praise for the banks of native flowers it now allows to flourish on its verges. During this period I noted how most main roadsides across Norfolk had been turned brown with herbicide spray, although presently the dual carriageway around Norwich has slopes awash with the colours of wild perennials.

In our parish our small green, which is barely 15m by 100m, is mown according to the unthinking orthodoxy that prevails across much of civic Britain. It’s a waste of money, fuel and resources, but does it really matter to wildlife that the patch is reduced every fortnight to shorn turf?

Continue reading...

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Young key workers in London spend more than half of pay on rent

Harder for teachers, nurses and police to keep pace with England’s housing costs – PwC

London and the southern regions of England are facing a dearth of teachers, nurses and police officers as rising rents make housing in large parts of the UK unaffordable for key public sector workers.

A report by the consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers said there was an urgent need to increase the supply of homes after it found that the failure of public sector pay to keep pace with soaring housing costs had made it increasingly hard for workers on modest incomes to make ends meet.

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First drop in prices in 2019 signals buyers’ market later in year

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We paid our deposit but the sellers are not ready to exchange

Should we be worried that our conveyancer has our money even though we can’t yet proceed?

Q I am writing to request your advice regarding the time difference between payment of our deposit and the exchange of contracts. We paid our conveyancer our deposit of 10% of the purchase price a week ago. But at the time, they said the sellers and their conveyancers were not yet ready to exchange contracts. Should we be worried? How long does one typically wait between payment of the deposit and exchange of contracts? Is it reasonable to ask our conveyancer to return our deposit and we pay them only when they are ready to exchange contracts?
IR

A I don’t think you should be worried about paying your deposit to your conveyancer as the money will simply be sitting safely in the conveyancer’s client account. It won’t get paid to the seller’s conveyancer until contracts have been exchanged. If that doesn’t happen – because your seller pulls out of the sale or you pull out of the purchase – you’ll get your money back with interest, if applicable. That’s not the case if you were to pull out after contracts have been exchanged because your seller would be entitled to keep your deposit.

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Buying or selling a property affected by Japanese knotweed? Nottingham Estate Agents

We asked Nic Seal, Environmental Scientist and Managing Director of Environet UK Ltd to provide advice to buyers and sellers alike Whereas rabbits are pre-programmed to eat grass and to go forth and multiply, Japanese knotweed DNA is hell bent on: Destruction – it loves to damage human property, growing through asphalt, destroying walls and […]

The post Buying or selling a property affected by Japanese knotweed? appeared first on OnTheMarket.com blog.

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Country diary: spawn to be wild

Reach, Cambridgeshire: A mini rewilding project brings exquisite new amphibian life to the garden

I’ve loosened our garden’s reins and let it run free as an experiment to see how much wildness might return to it from the surrounding fenland, woodland and grassland. In the spring I laid aside my weeding fork, made a tiny pond from an old cattle sink, planted seedlings of knapweed, cornflower and borage, dialled down my urge for neatness, stood back and watched.

The wildlife didn’t dawdle shyly at the perimeter. A companionable flock of house sparrows, a kaleidoscope of hoverfly and bee species, and a family of bank voles have staked their claims on these few square metres of soil, yet I knew the pond would take a little longer to establish and find its balance. I helped it along with a scoop of mud from a fenland ditch, a bundle of oxygenating hornwort and a small jamjar of wriggling tadpoles.

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