Peak Hill Questions and Answers

The view of the town from Peak Hill was one of the reasons I decided Sidmouth would be a wonderful place to live, but I am very unhappy with the way it looks right now, are you?

Recently EDDC (it is their responsibility not the Town Council) has struggled to maintain the clifftop field effectively, large areas have been taken over by Alexanders a rampant cousin to parsley introduced as a food by the Romans, and most people are unhappy with it.

So what has gone wrong? One problem is that different people want different things. It is a busy walking route for visitors and locals alike, and a popular site to just sit on a summer day. With treasures such as the site’s more than 50 species of wild flowers and seven species of butterfly, it brightens the day for people who like to be surrounded by nature.

For those who take a wider view of nature, it is a remnant of the clifftop farmland and an important corridor linking other sites for bats, birds and butterflies as they move around the valley.

The site was showing signs of deterioration back in 2022 and town councillors invested a lot of effort working with the District Council, with help from the Biodiversity Group, to arrive at a plan that could cater for the needs of different groups. The plan was finalised in November 2023, so what did they come up with?

The plan had over 90% of the area given over to priority for human amenity, the walkers and sitters, and would be cut every 4 weeks in the growing season as it had been in the past. Such a cut presents a lawn with ground hugging flowers likedaisies and clovers to continue feeding bees and provide bright spots across the green backcloth, but keeps out the Alexanders and other tall plants. The daffodil areas would be left until the bulbs had topped up their reserves for next year and the leaves had died down.

Three small islands of vegetation away from the main path beside the clifftop, less than 10% of the total area, were identified as priority for nature with 2 cuts, one in late March and the other in early September with the cuttings removed. These islands were to have signage explaining what to see, a chance for families to learn about nature.

The reduced mowing would allow the taller grasses to provide a home for the butterfly caterpillars, the grasshoppers and many other invertebrates and vertebrates such as the voles. It would also allow a range of taller wild flowers such as the two types of mustard, the burdock and the wild carrot to grow, providing food for so many invertebrates including bees and other pollinators. These would in turn be food for birds such as the pipits and wagtails that feed in the daytime and the horseshoe bats that pass this way each night.

So what went wrong? For reasons that have never been explained fully, the team managing the site did not follow the plan. Large areas were left uncut and became very unsightly. Then they were cut at the wrong time and this scattered millions of Alexanders seeds across the site. The result is the current mess, invading banks of Alexanders, the daffodils are not thriving, the site is not fit for its recreation function and it is a failure as a haven for wildlife.

What can be done? It can be fixed, town councillors and members of the Biodiversity Group are determined to get it back to be the treasure that it should be. It will take time but the first priority is to give the management plan a chance to work. Fresh moves are being made to help EDDC back on track with Peak Hill, and we are sure people will step forward to help.