Roy Westwater, one of FCG’s long-standing members, has donated the cost of one of our new ‘perch benches’ on the banks of the Rife in memory of his late wife Barbara. We were pleased to have a suitable plaque engraved and mounted on the bench, and to take this photograph of Roy and members of his family being among the first to use it.

After a fallow year in 2020 due to Covid restrictions, volunteers from Ferring Conservation Group came together again with those from The Good Gym Worthing to rake up the cut vegetation at the foot of Sea Lane Ferring at the start of the month.

The Good Gym is a charity with branches across the country where groups of runners combine regular exercise with helping local communities as happened here in Ferring. The reason for the work was to remove the thatch of grass that would otherwise swamp the wild flowers on the verge, which include the attractive Salsify amongst others, and allow them to thrive in future years.

About 20 volunteers from both groups met up one tea time, but were greeted by a sudden downpour of rain at the start of the session. Luckily, this soon relented and the task was completed in a friendly way with people mixing well for a chat whilst carrying out the raking. Daylight began to fade, but by then the task was completed.

Ferring Conservation Group Chairman David Bettiss said, “We’re very grateful to our friends from The Good Gym helping us out once again alongside the regular volunteers from our own group to carry out this important work. We’ve already seen a definite improvement in the biodiversity here since the annual raking started a few years ago, and trust that next Spring and Summer we’ll all see the fruits of our work with wild flowers blooming. At this time of climate change, it’s critical that we all do our bit to improve our local environment as much as we can, whilst providing a good habitat for our wildlife.”

On a glorious late September morning around 35 members of Ferring Conservation Group met at the beach huts in Ferring to carry out the last scheduled beach clean of 2021.

As in previous years this September’s beach clean was conducted as part of the Great British Beach Clean. This national initiative is a week-long citizen science event running from 17^th to 26^th September, driven by the Marine Conservation Society, with many beach cleans taking place across the UK. During each clean a 100 metre section of the beach is surveyed and all items of litter recorded with the results fed into the International Coastal Clean-up (ICC) initiative. This global event was established in 1986 to encourage volunteers to act as ‘citizen scientists’ by tallying the items of litter found with a view to identifying the sources of marine debris, examining the trends of items and to increase awareness regarding the different threats to marine life. Sadly whales and dolphins have washed up on beaches either already dead or dying due to them ingesting large amounts of plastic. Tragically, in 2019, a young Cuvier beaked whale was spotted in great distress off the coast of the Philippines. It was soon washed up on a beach and shortly afterwards sadly died. To the astonishment of vets carrying out a post-mortem, 88 pounds of plastic was removed from its stomach (including 16 rice sacks on top of other types of plastic bags; plus large tangles of nylon rope). This distressing story demonstrates only too well the race against time we all face for immediate action to be taken worldwide.

Jane Hayman from the Group said “there were relatively few items of litter on Ferring beach due to the recent calm seas and the largest item found was a particularly heavy wooden pallet that became a two-man job to move it along to the collection point. Disappointingly the worst area for litter was to the rear of the beach huts and around the Bluebird café area”.

The 26^th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) is taking place in Glasgow from 31^st October to 12th November 2021.  Leading up to this crucial conference a national initiative is taking place and from 18^th to 26^th September over 2000 communities across the country are joining together for the ‘Great Big Green Week’. Events are taking place in many towns and villages involving local groups highlighting how people can take action to tackle climate change and protect our wildlife and green spaces on a local and personal level, with a view to encouraging others to become involved too. The events will range from climate cafés, community stalls, art installations, concerts and many more all with the aim of putting pressure on the UK Government to up its game on climate change. Ferring Conservation Group have provided an interesting and thought provoking display which can be seen in Ferring Library until Friday 24^th September. Please do go along and take a look at it and even put some of the suggested actions into practice.

Ferring Conservation Group has completed the construction and installation of two rustic wooden benches on the Ferring side of the local Rife River. It’s hoped that these will provide a welcome stopping point for walkers to take a short break to appreciate this much loved and protected Local Wildlife Site.

The benches are made of solid oak and were constructed by Group committee member, Graham Tuppen, and he was assisted in the installation by fellow committee member Colin Annis and Group chairman David Bettiss. The work was carried out with the full cooperation of the Environment Agency who own the land, with the benches designed to fit seamlessly and naturally into the local environment.

They were paid for out of Conservation Group funds, and specifically by donations received from generous members during the recent 2021 membership renewal process. The work was carried out by the volunteers in their own time and expense.

David Bettiss said, ‘We’re very pleased to have been able to install these excellent and well-crafted benches for the benefit of the local community on the Rife. Whilst working on them, we were overwhelmed by many positive comments by people walking past, so I know they’re going to be well used, and will hopefully last a long time. I’m very grateful to our members who have given us donations which allowed us to complete such a project for the benefit of the whole local community, and particular thanks must go to my fellow workers, Colin Annis and especially Graham Tuppen, who did the bulk of the work.’