EVERY year, many beautiful orchids grow on the north verge of the A339 at Pertuis Avenue in Alton, between the junctions with Basingstoke Road and Whitedown Lane.

And every year they are cut down when the verge is mown.

Alton Climate Action Network’s nature group, Alton and Villages Local Action for Nature, surveyed this verge last April, and found about 25 common spotted orchids, three bee orchids and other wild flowers such as cowslips.

The group appealed to Hampshire Highways to protect these precious wild flowers, and Hampshire County Council has now designated the north verge of Pertuis Avenue as a ‘Road Verge of Ecological Importance’ (RVEI).

The grass-cutting regime will be changed from this April, to benefit the orchids.

Jenny Griffiths from Alton Climate Action Network said: “We are so pleased that Hampshire County Council has recognised the importance of this verge for biodiversity and has changed the mowing regime.

“We hope more verges in and around Alton will be mown less in future so that we can all enjoy the wildflowers – and the pollinators can too.”

With around 10,000km of highways in Hampshire, the county’s verges present around 13,000 hectares of roadside verge habitat, equivalent to three per cent of the county’s total land area.

To find out more about Hampshire’s RVEI scheme, visit https://tinyurl.com/2arz9ex8