Badlesmere Court FarmBNG offset site

Site description

Badlesmere Court Farm extends to come 98 ha and is located 6.14 km south of Faversham, 1.26 km northeast of the village of Badlesmere. It lies within the Kent Downs National Landscape, which is prized for its mosaics of chalk downland, open pasture, and ancient woodlands interspersed with quaint villages.

It is around 600 m south west of Lees Court Valley Local Wildlife Site (LWS), and Church of St Laurence LWS is 200 m to the west, while being adjacent to a network of chalk grassland and ancient woodland priority habitats.

Presently, the farm is managed as arable cropland with a modified grassland pasture on the northern part of the site, criss-crossed with hedgerows and lines of trees.

Habitat proposals include the creation of large areas of Other neutral grassland with scattered scrub and ponds.

These habitats could help support species recorded within a 1 km radius of the site such as: 

• Bats including Natterer’s Bat, common pipistrelle, and Brown Long-eared bat
• Birds including fulmar, white-fronted goose, pochard, merlin, lapwing, woodcock, whimbrel, turtle dove, cuckoo, swift, skylark, house martin, yellow wagtail, nightingale, fieldfare, spotted flycatcher, marsh tit, and corn bunting
• Invertebrates including species of butterfly, bee, and stag beetles
• Reptiles and amphibians including slow-worm, common toad, palate newt, smooth newt  and common lizard 
• Large mammals including fallow deer and Eurasian badger
• Small mammals including West European Hedgehog and Eurasian common shrew

Habitat Transitions