Will works for Rix Petroleum in Hull and does his best to keep everyone safe.

It may appear to be just some fields of grass, but the meadows are essential ecological spaces which need protection, as our greenbelt governance correspondent Angus Young reports.

The fields lying either side of Priory Road act as a green boundary between Hull and Cottingham. They also happen to be almost the only surviving relic of the neutral grasslands that once covered the River Hull valley before the arrival of 20th century chemicals-based intensive agriculture. If you are wondering what a neutral grassland is then read on. (Also read on if you’re not – Ed)

According to the Hull Biodiversity Action Plan, the qualifying criteria appears to be somewhere that has not been treated with herbicides or artificial fertilisers. The Plan notes such unimproved semi-natural grasslands in Hull are rare and the best ones can be found on the pastures at Priory Meadows and Snuff Mill fields which have been traditionally maintained for over a century. In that period, the only incursions have been the construction of the Humberside Police HQ, two semi-detached houses standing opposite in splendid isolation and, more recently, the Priory Woods cemetery.

Despite the recent prolonged dry spell, it’s mainly a wet grassland peppered with hollows, ponds and ditches that provide important breeding grounds for frogs and newts and feeding grounds for kestrels and barn owls. They also support a rich variety of flowering plants and plant species typically found in unimproved grassland, such as Adder’s Tongue, Cowslip and Pepper Saxifrage.

Rohan Lewis, who carries out local plant surveys for the Botanical Society, visited Priory Meadows earlier this summer. He said: “I was astounded not only by the colours – the purple of the Knapweed, the blue of Devil’s-Bit, the yellows of Cinquefoil and Meadow Buttercup – but also by the presence of plants like Meadow-Rue, Pepper-Saxifrage and Betony, whose nearest sites otherwise are mostly in the floodplain of the River Derwent.”

However, he was less impressed by the impact of grazing horses which are kept on the grasslands. “All this land is owned by Hull City Council and though not technically greenbelt land, it has been preserved from development and leased out for grazing, mainly by horses. Unfortunately some tenants have shown little regard for anything but the opportunity to graze as many horses as possible. Some of the fields are now nibbled almost bare and Green-Winged Orchids, which used to occur there, have not been seen for years.”

Happily, there’s a new push to manage some of the Meadows in a more eco-friendly way. A new community interest company has recently taken on a new lease from the city council covering 11 fields. It hopes to restore hedges and clear encroaching scrub from some of the fields as well as creating more public access and reducing  grazing on three fields to the west of Priory Road.

Rohan added: “Members of Hull Natural History Society have been out this month performing an in-depth botanical survey on the fields  covered by the lease. This data is being fed back to Natural England and will hopefully lead to the award of grant money to Priory Meadows CIC so that the improved management can get underway.”

Angus Young

This question was asked at the Big Malarkey by Miyah, aged 9 , of HU7. So we went and found out.

Sophie, from the Daisy Appeal (and a couple of her scientist chums) outline how schools across our region can enter this amazing competition.

It’s all well and good to remember bin day, but what happens after you’ve put them out for collection? Our refuse destination correspondent went and found out.

We all do it. It’s bin day so the right bins are wheeled out into position, they’re emptied into the back of a bin lorry and taken away. Once the vehicle is out of sight, it’s the end of our most familiar weekly transaction with Hull City Council.

For most of us, where all that rubbish ends up is of little concern once it’s left the street. So where does it all go from there?

Once upon a time it was all simply dumped in landfill sites. Back in 2006 both local councils in Hull and the East Riding adopted a new joint waste strategy at boosting recycling and composting while reducing the amount of household rubbish going into landfill. The idea was to lift recycling rates above 45 per cent. At the time, it was an ambitious target. Three years earlier, Hull’s recycling rate was just six per cent.

Today the city’s rate is just below 50 per cent – significantly higher than both the regional average across Yorkshire and the national average. Since 2006, the council has developed a network of household waste recycling centres alongside its traditional weekly collection service for all residents and commercial customers.  The current system sees the waste we sort into different-coloured bins at home ultimately ending up being used for different things.

Brown bin rubbish – garden and food waste – is sent to Biowise Ltd. in Willerby where it is turned into compost for use in agriculture and horticulture. The contents of blue bins – plastic, metal, glass, paper and card – heads up to Hartlepool where J&B Recycling where items are re-processed back into other products which are then sold to firms across the UK and abroad. Finally, the non-recyclable black bin rubbish, often referred to as residual waste, initially stays in Hull, being delivered to Geminor UK’s facility in St. Mark Street where it is processed and turned into refuse-derived fuel (RDF) for use in energy-from-waste plants.

The original destination for this RDF was meant to be the nearby Energy Works complex in Cleveland Street but technical problems at the facility forced a re-think and Geminor has recently upgraded its processing plant with a new RDF baling and wrapping production line. This has taken the site’s annual capacity up to 150,000 tonnes  and now sees waste being sorted, shredded, magnetically separated, baled and packaged before being transported to customers in the UK and loaded onto bull carrier ships at Albert Dock in Hull for export to Nordic countries.

So remember the next time you chuck something in your black bin, it’s highly likely that it will end up powering an energy plant in Sweden. However, your black bin rubbish could soon be doing the same thing much closer to home as Energy Works is set to re-open soon under new owners and operators.

Now that’s what I call recycling in your back yard.

Angus Young

Design journalist and East Hull lass Leanne Cloudsdale selects a West Hull classic for personal reasons.

Programme Director Lisa Wedgner explains how Generation Hull is young people the chance to shape the creative future of the city.

Illustrator Liz Million? Doing our quiz at Big Malarkey? That can mean only one thing – chaos. Ally-mai attempts to reign her in.

When it comes to being hard, reports our aqua toughness correspondent, it seem nothing beats the water round here.

It’s not often Hull gets to be at the top of a UK league table. But that’s exactly what happened recently when some bright spark at wellness brand Kollo Health decided to rank 50 cities across Britain on how hard their drinking water is. It turns out Hull’s wet stuff is not just hard, it’s very hard. In fact, it’s the hardest there is. Harder than London, Luton, Oxford and Cambridge who also made the Top Five.

The reason behind this new accolade actually lies beneath us. Hull draws its water supply from a chalk aquifer beneath the Yorkshire Wolds, giving it levels of hardness typical of southern England despite being in the north.

So what is hard water? Our very hard water contains the country’s highest concentrations of dissolved materials, primarily calcium and magnesium carbonate. These minerals come from limestone and chalk that water can filter through before reaching the water table. As we sit on a thick seam of chalk, our tap water is nearly 19 times harder than the soft water supply in Inverness. It’s also six times harder than that of Leeds and more than five times harder than Sheffield’s.

The soft water in Scotland, Wales and parts of northern England is also the result of geology. Granite, basalt and slate are all far less soluble and contribute very few minerals to the water.

Water hardness is measured in milligrams of calcium carbonate per litre and there’s even an official UK classification system determining what’s soft and what’s hard. In case you’re wondering, very hard drinking water is 310 mgL CaCO3 or above while the softest is between 0 and 60. In the most recent standings Hull topped the UK charts with a whopping 380 mgL CaCO3, well ahead of London and Luton who were both on 320.

While being Number One naturally provides Hull with bragging rights, there’s also a downside because very hard water does create a host of household problems. Kettles and coffee machines are the most obvious casualties as limestone builds up on heating elements, forcing them to work harder and use more energy. A heavily-scaled kettle can use up to 12 per cent more electricity than a clean one.

Washing machines and dishwashers suffer too as limestone clogs up pumps, heating elements and water jets over time, Without regular descaling, appliance lifespans can be reduced significantly. Boilers and pipes can also lose efficiency and ultimately fail as a result of limescale deposits. Because of this, experts recommend using a filter or a water softener to improve taste, reduce limescale and extend the life of appliances.

Hull’s very hard water means soap doesn’t lather particularly well but rinses off much better than if you’re living in a soft water place like Inverness. Many people also find that hard water leaves their skin feeling drier than soft water while hard water is generally believed to have a better taste than its softer counterpart.

There’s also evidence to suggest very hard water is beneficial to human health because it’s a good dietary source of calcium and magnesium. Some studies have even claimed that populations in hard water areas have slightly lower rates of heart disease. Scarlett Gray, registered dietician at Kollo Health, said: “Water hardness has a genuine impact on daily life, from the way skin and hair feel after washing to the limescale build-up in kettles and appliances that millions of households deal with every day. Hull’s position at the top of the national table is striking, particularly given that most of Yorkshire records soft water. For residents, understanding just how hard their local water is can be the first step towards managing its everyday effects.”

Angus Young

Maritime historian Dr Robb Robinson of the Uni of Hull tells the fascinating tale of a bold action by HMS Rose.