The redevelopment of Betteshanger Colliery’s former spoil tip into a nature reserve with world-class leisure facilities required an immense amount of planning and work.

• Shale was taken from the two million cubic metres, flat-topped slagheaps and then mixed with recycled green waste and fertiliser to create a uniquely rich topsoil.
• 130,000 new shrubs and trees, including silver birch and hawthorn, among other indigenous varieties, were hand-planted.
• Natural re-vegetation of the site was encouraged along with the protection of the growth of Holm Oak and birch trees in Lydden Wood; a wood which had been planted by the National Coal Board in the 1960s and ’70s.
• Protected areas were created, by working with Natural England (formerly English Nature), the Environment Agency and the Kent Wildlife Trust, for indigenous birds such as long-eared owls lapwings and plovers. 
• Similarly, protection zones were created for no fewer than six different species of bat. 
• Spiders uniquely found in shale-rich environments also had their natural habitat safeguarded in managed bare shale areas. 
• Beetle banks and hollows have been created to encourage colonisation by beetles, spiders, and burrowing bees and wasps, while breeding boxes have been built for stag beetles.
• Reptiles were relocated from the former pit-top site to Fowlmead Country Park, giving new homes for lizards, slow worms, and grass snakes.
• A wildlife tunnel was built underneath the A258 so that the resident badgers and bats are able to migrate between the new business park and country park sites.
• Ornithologists have access to a purpose-built octagonal observatory platform giving a panoramic view of Worth Marshes.  In spring, migrating birds such as waders, wagtails, pippets and finches fly up from Africa and southern Europe, while in the autumn there are unique opportunities to see migrating flocks swooping in from Scandinavia.
• An overgrown area was opened up alongside the old mine rail track to create a wetland and reed beds, which is already home to moorhens reed bunting and coots.  ‘Newcomers’ to the site, such as kingfisher, sand martin and bullfinch, will be encouraged with the creation of new nesting habitats.