New Forest salt lick scheme extended to help prevent road accidents

A scheme to help prevent the deaths of livestock on roads in the New Forest is being extended for a fourth year.

Salt licks are plastic bowls containing lumps of rock salt for animals to consume, stabilised by fixing into a car tyre. They have been put out over the past three years as a way of encouraging livestock away from the roadside where they are at risk of being hit by traffic.

Livestock, especially ponies, can congregate by the roadside during the colder months, attracted by the gritting salt spread by lorries to prevent the roads from freezing over.

The scheme, set up by New Forest commoners Tony Vanderhoek and Bill Howells, is currently funded by the New Forest Trust and is being continued in the coming months in the hope of reducing the number of animals involved in road accidents across the Forest.

“The whole idea started when four ponies were killed at once near Brook and it was a horrific sight,” explained Tony.

“The reason why those ponies were killed was because of salt licking on the side of the road and a van ploughed into them at high speed. It was one of the worst animal accident incidents in recent times and gained much attention.

“One of the New Forest CDA members suggested [as a result] putting salt licks out, so we thought we would give it a try. The design we chose was the simplest and most effective one amongst several ideas.

“The ponies need salt in the summer because they sweat and in the winter it can be compared to having sweets. Hearing the gritter lorries gets their attention and sometimes brings them up to the roads.

“The idea was to put these salt licks out so the ponies didn’t feel the need to wait for a gritter lorry as they had a supply they could go to and have their fill. By putting them at the same place every year as we have been doing, they know where they are and go back to them, being habitual in their nature.”

A total of 17 of these salt licks have been sited along the Cadnam to Fordingbridge Road, at a safe distance away. The intention is to add more along the Dibden Purlieu to Lymington Road later this year if all goes to plan.

“Whether it has made a big difference, the jury is still out,” said Tony. “It’s quite difficult to determine that the figures show conclusively that these salt licks prevent animal accidents.

“There seems to be an improvement in the accident rate but whether it stays like that is unknown – drivers do daft things all the time.

“Having the salt licks at least shows we are trying to do something and that gets publicity and attention to safer driving, so it’s a dual purpose thing.”

The salt licks are one of several initiatives to try to reduce animal accidents as much as possible. Others include an ongoing campaign encouraging drivers to pass wide and slow (#passwideandslow on social) when near Forest livestock.

The New Forest Trust is a charity organisation that works to preserve, sustain and enhance the New Forest for future generations, and offers support to a number of different projects aligned to its values.

Chair William Ziegler said: “We are very grateful to local businesses who support us and in doing so, allow the Trust to fund various initiatives across the New Forest.

“Over the past few years, the salt lick scheme has been well received so we are very pleased to contribute to this initiative and try and help bring down the numbers of road accidents involving livestock.”