Chichester’s MP visits the giant periwinkle of Medmerry
Jess Brown-Fuller, the Liberal Democrat MP for Chichester, visited one of her constituency’s most environmentally dynamic areas last week and saw its newest feature, a huge periwinkle.
The Periwinkle Shelter is located at the southwest edge of Medmerry, allowing visitors to survey the whole nature reserve. Woven from Sussex willow by environmental artists Rebecca and Mark Ford, of Two Circles Design, the design features a cloud window silhouette of a Marsh harrier. The inspiration for the design were the periwinkles found in the remains of an ancient medieval fish basket, part of the Middle and Bronze Age discoveries made by archaeological excavations during the creation of the Medmerry Nature Reserve.
The periwinkle viewing shelter is one of three art installations located at different points around Medmerry, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of what was Europe’s largest coastal realignment scheme when it opened in November 2013. One of the other installations is a Soundscape made by Splodge Designs, in which walkers can scan a QR code and listen to the sounds of the nature reserve with stories and descriptions from residents, including those involved in Medmerry’s creation. Nearer to Selsey is a Timelapse Installation by Jakub Bors which encourages visitors to upload photos from one spot onto a website to create a timelapse record of how the new wetlands area develops through the years. Leaflets describing the art installations and a map are available at the RSPB Pagham Visitor Centre.
Jess was shown around Medmerry and Pagham Harbour by RSPB site manager Adam Taylor and the RSPB’s Parliamentary Liaison Rose Buxton. Both wetland areas are managed by the RSPB.
While Pagham Harbour is a long-established wetland, Medmerry wetlands are new and developing, making them a fascinating and dynamic environment to study nature. Since 2013 Medmerry has been inundated with salt water twice daily, transforming the 310-hectare site into saltmarsh and mudflats and providing safe nursery grounds for young fish, habitats for feeding the resting waders and wildfowl. The area is now home to Lapwing, Redshank, Ringed Plover, Avocet, Skylark, Yellowhammer, Linnet and Corn Bunting. For more information visit the RSPB Website
The walk around Medmerry, from Selsey to Bracklesham, was named as one of the UK’s 20 most glorious Autumn walks by The Times newspaper this month.
“Medmerry is a stunning environment and demonstrates what communities can do positively to prepare themselves for climate change,” said Jess.
Medmerry was created after residents invited Dutch and British experts to visit the area in 2001 to develop ideas to make the area more resilient to climate change. For more information see https://peninsulapartnership.org.uk
“Medmerry has been an incredible achievement, but we still need to do more to manage our remaining coastline and minimise future flood risk to residents,” said Jess, pointing out that this winter saw the sea overtop shingle sea defences and flood two caravan sites in Bracklesham.