Watchtree Nature Reserve

Watchtree, and Enterprising Communities, and DEFRA

Even so, the process leading up to the establishment of the social enterprise was far from plain sailing. Anne’s role on behalf of Enterprising Communities was to run a series of workshops with the members of the Watchtree Group, and in fact two workshops had to be held before progress was made.  Bill does not put this rather slow progress down to a lack of understanding within the Watchtree Group: rather he points to a certain initial lack of understanding within DEFRA.

This lack of understanding appears to be based on a number of factors and attitudes – most notably risk aversion and fear of stepping out of the box – perhaps traditional behaviour within government.  DEFRA had a number of future management solutions available to them, based on a simple initial decision. It could choose to combine the management of the engineering project with the running of the nature reserve and so decide to seal the site, secure it and manage it directly by an arms-length relationship with a commercial management company. Alternatively it could agree to split the management of the nature reserve from that of the engineering works and to contract off the running of the nature reserve.

DEFRA chose the latter route, requesting expressions of interest from groups to undertake the management. Even at this point however, management by a local social enterprise was by no means guaranteed – with local wildlife trusts and others being asked to manage the site as part of their wider sphere of activities. For various reasons – not least a requirement by the successful management group to agree a ‘ring-fenced budget’ for the management activities on the site – the local social enterprise route was agreed as the way forward.