Our Vision

The vision of Histon & Impington Green Spaces Charitable Incorporated Organisation (HIGS CIO) is that the people of Histon & Impington will be the custodians and beneficiaries of an expanded network of wildlife-rich, green spaces, that present and future generations can access and enjoy.

The mission of HIGS CIO is to acquire, or secure long-term access to, land in and around Histon & Impington and enable this to be managed for these twin purposes: nature conservation and the community experiencing nature for their enjoyment, health and wellbeing. The first sites for these purposes are Long Meadow and Croft Close Set-aside, collectively known as Abbey Fields.

Our strategic priorities, as of February 2024, are set out here.

The charity works with others seeking to encourage wildlife in the villages and support positive engagement with nature. This has included supporting HI Friends’ Wellbeing Festival, the Eco-fest 30-day Challenge, planting bunds at The Green with wetland wildflowers and assisting with enhancements at Doctor’s Close. 

The Abbey Fields Project

At Abbey Fields, comprising Long Meadow and Croft Close Set-aside, we are seeking to protect and enhance their biodiversity. Importantly these areas will be for local people to enjoy, to savour their serenity and to connect with nature.

Long Meadow is a perennial grassland which already is a joy to visit, especially in spring when the wildflowers bloom. We aim to make it even better: it has great potential as a flower-rich meadow. We have started to manage the grassland to reduce nutrients and to introduce wildflower seeds of local provenance, thus safeguarding the local genetic heritage.

An exciting part of our vision is creating conditions for red-listed water voles to thrive in the brook beside Long Meadow. These occur further down the watercourse but sightings at Long Meadow are sporadic. We are managing the bankside vegetation to create conditions favourable for water vole, with longer term ambitions for some minor remodelling of the watercourse to create conditions to further enhance the biodiversity.

In the mid-1990s Croft Close Set-aside was an arable field surrounded by hedgerows which included two venerable trees – an oak and a field maple, both dated by experts at around 450 years old.

Croft Close Set-aside is now a rich mosaic of habitats, with its scrub of particular note. This supports threatened breeding birds such as Linnet, Willow Warbler and the recently red-listed Greenfinch. Turtle doves – now globally vulnerable – which have very specific habitat requirements, have bred in the past and are again attempting to do so this year. We have the right conditions, with a little enhancement, for red-listed Nightingales to breed. Exciting!

Our vision involves looking out for opportunities to take similar initiatives while ensuring that we look after the Abbey Fields sites sympathetically for the community, forever, to secure and enhance the sites’ biodiversity.

An integral part of this vision is to involve people from all walks of life within our community in caring for, learning from and celebrating these wonderful sites. We have students involved in our management teams, and children from our local schools have been involved in fundraising.

We are also engaging with their teachers to provide learning opportunities. Similarly, we have local scout groups helping us put our project into practice, gaining real-world nature-focused experiences along the way. We want to take these, and similar initiatives further as we secure the Abbey Fields sites for the future.

In doing so, we will recognise the fantastic support we have had from our community on our journey so far: contributing to the fundraising, the hours of time volunteers have freely given or just simple encouragement. Abbey Fields is for the community to take pride in and enjoy – whether on the early-morning dog walk, capturing photographically the atmosphere of a winter’s day, learning about nature, developing camaraderie on a site management work party or just as somewhere to go for a walk away from the bustle of daily-living.

Photos: Daphne Fisher, Moira Neal, Guy Richardson, Jon Pavey, Penny Reeves

In developing our plans, we have had advice from specialists from the local BCN Wildlife Trust, Natural England, Cambridgeshire County Council’s Biodiversity & Greenspaces Team, RSPB and others. Specific advice from BCN Wildlife Trust specialists includes stating Long Meadow has the potential to become a flower-rich meadow of note (they judge the meadow’s current condition is better than average, but it could be better under a modified grassland management regime). They have also identified Croft Close Set-aside as a site where Nightingales might breed.