Our Projects

Rigs

The Society has a significant role in the county in that it tries to promote the identification and conservation of important geological and geomorphological sites for subsequent use as educational and research resources that may be enjoyed by everyone.

The project is part of the nation-wide RIGS project, (RIGS is an acronym for "Regionally Important Geological/Geomorphological Sites"), and is conducted with the help of the Nature Conservancy Council (NCC), English Nature and volunteers from the Society.

All RIGS are sites which are not designated as SSSIs (Sites of Special Scientific Interest) and consequently do not have any formal legal protection against damage or access restrictions. Hence, access to all sites has to be done through tactful negotiation with the landowner.

The RIGS project holds regular meetings with the NCC and any suggestions for potentially useful sites would be welcome from members or landowners.

Currently, the General Secretary, Mr. Elvin Thurston is also the RIGS team leader.

To date the Society has, with the help of the RIGS committee and its members from various organisations, managed to achieve RIGS status for four sites and is negotiating with landowners regarding several others. Some of these will require extensive conservation work (e.g. clearing bracken and brambles, scree, etc.) and members are encouraged to volunteer their services to help with these tasks. Please contact Elvin if you think you can spare some time to help (which will be on a somewhat ad hoc basis, as and when the sites progress to the stage where work needs to be done). A pool of known willing volunteers would be very useful!