Hampshire County Council gets £98,000 grant to save rare orchids

A Natural England grant of £98,000 will allow Hampshire County Council to help rare helleborine orchids thrive.

The conservation project aims to create protected habitats for the endangered plants at sites in East Hampshire. 

Cllr Russell Oppenheimer, the cabinet member for the countryside, said: “The chalkland areas of the East Hampshire hangers and nearby woodlands already provide a home to some of the UK’s scarcest helleborine orchids, but their numbers have been in decline.

"This project will put in place measures to protect these fragile locations and nurture the threatened helleborine orchid back from the brink of extinction. Conservation work such as this is a key priority.”