TREE clearance work is to be carried out at Poor Common, Ferndown, to make the site a Local Nature Reserve to benefit both residents and wildlife.

Clearing rhododendron and scrub will open up woodland and get rid of "drinking dens", and old railway sleepers will be installed at bridleway entrances to stop motorcyclists getting onto the common and using it as a racetrack.

Kissing gates will be installed at footpath entrances and the areas between entrances fenced.

The Poor Common Management Plan follows a survey of local residents.

A total of 34 per cent wanted the area to be better managed for wildlife and users, 16 per cent wanted it to remain in a natural condition.

Twelve per cent wanted motorcycles kept off the land and 10 per cent wanted safety improved in the swamp area.

The safety concerns have led to plans being put in place for excavation and re-landscaping of the ponds, constructing gradually sloping banks which will make them more obvious and lessen the risk if people fall in.

This will also improve the habitat for vegetation and creatures alike.

Material removed will be used to landscape the area and fill in large holes.

Elsewhere on the common, tree seedlings will be pulled up in a heathland restoration project.

A survey last year by the Herpetological Conservation Trust, which looks after the interests of reptiles, concluded there was still a viable population of the nationally-threatened sand lizard there "but any further loss of heathland would certainly make the area unfeasible in terms of the sand lizard".

Volunteers are expected to take part in the heathland restoration, pulling up or cutting down birch, willow and pine saplings this winter.

Contractors will carry out the pond work, rhododendron clearance, chemical treatment of regrowth and creating reptile-friendly sand scrapes and refuges during the winter and spring.

Interpretation signs will go up so that people know what is being done and why, as at other East Dorset Countryside Management Service locations.