News

Environment team pull together to save cattle

A power company’s team have pulled together to save cows from poisonous weeds.

From Press releases - 3 September 2019 12:00 AM

UK Power Networks’ environment team donated a day’s work to pull out ragwort on an Essex Wildlife Trust (EWT) nature reserve. Ragwort is poisonous to cattle and needs removing from fields that are grazed or used to provide fodder.

The team spent the day at Pheasant House Farm Nature Reserve near Danbury on a field where cattle graze. They worked alongside Essex Wildlife Trust staff and volunteers to remove masses of ragwort and take bags of it away to dry out and then be burnt.

Environment advisor Heather Patrick said: “Our team members work at different offices and rely heavily on telephones and web conferencing for meetings, so working together outside really is a ‘breath of fresh air’. It was very satisfying to see a big heap of ragwort at the end of the field.”

Ruth Angrave, Landscape Conservation Area Officer North-West at EWT said; “We are really grateful to the team for all their hard work. There is so much ragwort to burn that we have had one fire, but that hasn’t done it, still more to do!”

UK Power Networks keeps the power on for more than eight million homes and businesses across the East of England, London and the South East and clocked up over 2,000 hours of staff volunteering in 2018.