A POPULAR beauty spot is to be grazed by white cattle as part of a drive to increase biodiversity.

Winchester City Council officers say that they have made “significant” progress on securing the future of Whiteshute Ridge, with new fencing and a handrail to be installed.

The area used to be maintained by Badger Farm Parish Council, but the city council has now taken it on, and is keen to get groups, volunteers, students and the Hampshire and Isle of Wildlife Trust to help.

It says the site will be grazed using British White Cattle to increase its biodiversity.

The ridge is, along with Magdalen Hill, one of the few undeveloped areas of chalk downland close to a built-up area.

City councillor Brian Laming, pictured, who represents Badger Farm and Oliver’s Battery, said: “I have worked very hard to make sure that the site’s long term future is assured.

“It was originally conceived because the parish council were struggling to maintain it as a public place.

“I wanted to see it become more diverse because it is losing species of flowers and grass.”

Susan Croker, head of landscape and open spaces at the city council, said signage to make people aware of the cattle will be installed, along with a new handrail on steps leading to the ridge.

Work to install fencing will start in August with cattle coming on to the site after that.

In a notice she wrote she said: “As you are aware we have been undertaking a series of events to help us identify the best way forward for the ridge.

“It has finally been decided that the site will be grazed using friendly British White Cattle.

“I know many people will be delighted with this, as we have received overwhelming support for this proposal.”

Whiteshute Ridge has not often troubled historians but in 1100 when William Rufus was killed in the New Forest his body was carried to Winchester along the ridge on a cart driven by a peasant called Purkiss.

The future of the ridge is sensitive because it lies next to Bushfield Camp, the military base vacated in the mid-1970s.