Barbecues banned at Ham Hill Iron Age hillfort

From this summer, the rangers will be encouraging people to have picnics at Ham Hill rather than barbeques, as they will no longer be allowed due to the high fire risk and damage they cause at the Iron Age hillfort.

For the last fifteen years, barbecues have been catered for at Ham Hill, with stone plinths erected near the rangers centre for disposable barbecue to be used on. Disposable barbecues have grown in popularity over the last ten years and the barbecue area cannot cater for more than two or three groups at a time. This has led to more and more barbecues being used throughout the country park on sensitive grassland and near tinder dry meadows and woodlands, damaging the fragile plants and wildflowers and putting the site at risk of a large fire.

The last few summers have been so dry that the countryside team have had to temporarily ban barbecues at Ham Hill, so this year the decision has been taken to make this move a permanent one, all year round to protect the environment.

Countryside ranger, Paul McNeill, says “Disposable barbecues are not good for the environment in many ways. They scorch the grass below them, damaging the plants and wildflowers. When people have finished their barbecues, in our experience, they are often left hot and unsupervised for several hours after they have been used.

"With so much dry grass and standing dead trees due to ash dieback, this puts the site at risk of a large uncontrolled fire, like the fires we have seen at Wareham Forest over the last couple of years. The hot barbecues are also a burn risk to children and dogs, who may not see them on the ground before it’s too late.”

Councillor Sarah Dyke, portfolio holder for Environment at South Somerset District Council, said: “Using single use disposable barbecues can seem like a great idea when getting together with friends out and about in the countryside; but it’s not just the environmental damage they cause, they have a huge environmental impact too.

"Every year a million disposable barbecues are produced in the UK that cannot be recycled after use, and go directly to landfill. Disposable barbecues are often left littering the fabulous landscape of Ham Hill, and our decision to ban them is a small price to pay to preserve the habitat and wildlife.

"This way we can all play our part in helping to protect our environment and local greenspaces.”

The permanent stone barbecue plinths near the rangers centre have already been removed, and No BBQ signs are now in place.

At other other South Somerset District Council managed greenspaces, barbecues and fires have always been prohibited at Chard Reservoir and at Yeovil Country Park, campfires are not permitted but barbecues are allowed at the designated area at Ninesprings opposite the café, where the grassland is not as fragile as that at Ham Hill and there is very little dead wood posing a fire risk.