DORSET County Council has been praised by a leading wildlife charity for the way it has managed its roadside verges.

Plantlife, which is based in Wiltshire, says that not only has the county preserved and encouraged rare blooms, it has also saved taxpayers' money, too.

"Dorset adopted a new strategy for managing its highway verges in 2014," said Plantlife. "Since then, the council estimates it has saved £100,000 through, among other things, fewer cuts of road verges. It anticipates a further £50,000 in savings in 2017-18."

The county's verges form part of the half a million kilometres of rural road verge in the UK which represent half of Britain's remaining flower-rich grasslands and meadows.

"With over 97 per cent of ancient wild flower meadows destroyed since the 1930s, road verges are a vital refuge for many bees, butterflies, birds, bats and bugs," said Plantlife. "A good verge will supply a diverse source of nectar and pollen from the first celandines in February to the last Devil’s-bit scabious in September."

Plantlife's guidelines require councils to delay the first road verge cutting from early spring until late summer.

"The first cut should be undertaken in a period between

mid-July and the end of September, when seeds have been shed," said Plantlife.

Following its new strategy, Dorset County Council has reported that orchids and other rarer flowers are now more abundant on their verges.

The Plantlife praise comes on top of Dorset County Council's own research, published earlier this summer, which showed that its 'cut and collect' method was reaping results.

Since 2014 the council has removed grass cuttings in some urban and rural verges instead of allowing the freshly cut grass to decay on top of the cut area.

The collection of clippings reduces the amount of nutrients which go back into the soil and, over time, replaces coarse, long grasses with short, fine grass which encourages the growth of some of our rarest plants.

One area to have benefitted from this is the Blandford bypass and its town roadside verges, which are also now home to an array of wildflowers.

In other parts of the county Pyramidal Orchid, Bird’s-foot-trefoil, Kidney Vetch, Horse-shoe Vetch, Common Restharrow, Black Knapweed and Greater Knapweed have all been spotted.