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WALKERS who stick to their regular routes have been ignoring New Forest car park closures and putting breeding birds at risk.

The seasonal closures from the beginning of May to the end of June at Clayhill, Hincheslea, Crockford and Crockford Clump car parks were put in place to allow endangered ground nesting species to select their nesting sites and breed undisturbed.

But according to Peter Thaxter, the Forestry Commission employee co-ordinating the Progress team, some people are ignoring the closure signs.

And he says walkers who ignore the signs on the car park barriers are disturbing the redshank, lapwing, curlew and snipe that breed until the end of August.

In addition parking on the verges poses a danger to other road users and commoners' animals, he said.

"We always have these problems whenever we close a car park for any reason. They decide they are going to walk where they want to anyway," he said.

"Most people respect it and go somewhere else. But there's always a few who think they know better and go where they want."

A key part of the scheme has been monitoring public reaction to the closures.

A recent survey showed that about 90 per cent of people supported the scheme.

Mr Thaxter said: "It is now widely accepted that doing nothing about the problems facing species like lapwing, redshank and curlew was never an option. Their populations around the country are in serious decline because of habitat loss. Snipe numbers have crashed by 90 per cent in recent years.

"The New Forest is now the only stronghold left for ground nesting birds in this part of the country. Closing the four car parks enabled us to increase the total area of relatively secluded high-quality bird breeding habitat by around 600 hectares."

The seasonal closures will continue for another three years before enough data is collected to decide how to progress the project further.

2:57pm Tuesday 26th August 2008

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