About Us
We are a conservation volunteer group in Oliver’s Battery, Winchester, Hampshire.
Our aim is to ‘Conserve, sustain and enhance the natural landscape and wildlife of Oliver’s Battery Parish for the benefit, education and enjoyment of local people’. To this end we carry out practical conservation work, provide assistance for groups such as the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and organise ‘fun’ events to involve local people.
We are currently working on the management of the small nature reserve known as the Wildlife Conservation Area, next to the Recreation Ground off Compton Way.
The group’s work on the Conservation Area was set up with the help of funding from Hampshire County Council and the (now defunct) Hanson Environment Fund. OBCG continues to receive funding from the Parish Council and from membership subscriptions.
The group originally developed from local members of Hampshire Wildlife Trust who met while surveying the hedges of the parish for their wildlife habitat, as part of the Hampshire Hedgerow Survey. The Parish Boundary Stone erected to mark the Jubilee was the first successful joint venture between the parish and what is now OBCG. This lies just outside the southern boundary of the Conservation Area.
The group was formally constituted in 2005 (with a minor amendment in 2013) to co-operate with the Parish Council, which has an overview of the development of the whole parish. The Countryside Group hopes to contribute to the Parish Design Initiative and already has ideas about a management framework for habitats in the parish.