Background

Fox Corner Community Wildlife Area is a truly locally managed site. Having suffered long-term dumping and misuse and a succession of non-conforming planning uses and applications, the land was bought by compulsory purchase order in 1989 by Guildford Borough Council to give it permanent protection. Local residents then asked for the chance to create a wildlife area for Fox Corner and in 1990 a partnership group was set up, involving residents, Guildford Borough Council, Surrey Wildlife Trust and Merrist Wood College, to bring the site back to life.

In just 12 years, this 14 acre site has been transformed along the lines of its founding vision to create a self-sustaining and varied habitat requiring the minimum of intervention at the same time as promoting public access, enjoyment and education.

Once the Borough Council had cleared the ramshackle buildings at the front of the site and removed hardstandings and general debris, the Association began the long process of restoring the Area to its natural state beginning with the planting of native trees and hedgerows followed by an impressive list of improvements and projects:-

• The creation of a pond in the wet area adjacent to Stanford Brook together with a pond-dipping platform and boardwalk
• The construction of a hard spinal path to provide access for wheelchairs and pushchairs
• The addition of a wildflower meadow
• The installation of site interpretation boards
• The development of a mown green path network

The Fox Corner Community Wildlife Area Association currently has over 150 members, has a 50 year lease and became a Registered Charity (No 1083119) in October 2000. It raises its own funds and with its partnership organisations arranges all the work and events on the site. Traditional management techniques are used wherever possible including the coppicing of trees and laying of hedgerows.

Volunteers from the Association carry out the bulk of maintenance tasks with the bigger projects executed through outside contractors with funding from several sources, the largest being the SITA Environmental Trust.

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