Hedge planting & fencing Norbury Park Farm

Norbury Park Farm applied for £19,981.85 to plant 600m of hedgerow alongside one of the grazing fields by the River Mole.  Being part of Norbury Park, the location is well visited by walkers, but visitor management can be challenging with grazing livestock.

Sadly, the farm has suffered some significant losses to the dairy herd due to a parasite called Neospora.  This untreatable parasite accounts for a high number of UK abortions in cattle but also causes losses through reduced milk yields and increased culling rates.  It can be carried by dogs and is transferred to cattle when they graze on land where dog faeces have not been picked up.

The hedge planting and new fencing will encourage people to keep their dogs out of the field and walk along the adjacent track instead.  New pedestrian gates have been installed at either end of the footpath to allow people to follow the definitive footpath across the field if they prefer but it is hoped that better control of dogs will result.  Field gates have also been installed to allow the farmer to move his cattle from field to field.

Mark Frost, Norbury Park Farm said.

“Everybody who works or is involved on our family Farm is so proud that this project came to fruition. We have suffered huge losses over the last three years since lockdown, and this is a huge step to prevent further cases of neospora in the future. The fencing will be a life changer for all of us, and the hedge planting will encourage an abundance of wildlife to our farm. We were all blown away by how helpful everybody at Surrey Hills were, from helping us complete all of the paperwork to get the project started,  right through to getting it over the finish line, they organised a network of volunteers to plant all of the hedges, which meant it saved us the cost of using a contractor, we don’t know how to thank them enough! With the basic payment subsidies disappearing, schemes like this are a lifeline for farmers like us who are facing some of the toughest financial pressures we have ever seen, we are extremely grateful”