Shropshire tyre site clean-up still rolling on - watch the video

Time-lapse footage from the site shows how Furber's car breakers yard in Whixall is slowly being returned to nature.

Shropshire Wildlife Trust has taken on the project, with plans to restore the wildlife habitats and increase tourists to the area.

The trust set up cameras on the site to document the process which has been ongoing since the start of the year.

It shows machinery tearing down buildings and removing leftover scrap.

The latest contract has been won by waste management specialist, Intowaste, which removed tens of thousands of tyres from the site earlier this year.

In the final phase, they will be removing an accumulation of waste from dismantled cars, plastic and several tumbledown buildings.

It is part of a major project to restore habitats on and around Whixall Moss, which is internationally important for its wildlife.

Felled

Conservation manager at Shropshire Wildlife Trust, Jan Mckelvey, said: "It's great to see the mounds of waste finally being removed. While we’ll never be able to restore the scrapyard to peat bog, we will be able to make it part of the Moss and allow nature to re-colonise."

Elsewhere on the moss water is being retained by creating peat bunds and conifers are being felled to allow the peat bog to return and flourish.

Cleaning up the scrapyard, which closed recently after 50 years in business, forms part of a project to restore several areas of Fenns, Whixall, Bettisfield and Wem Mosses that has received grants from the European Union LIFE fund and Heritage Lottery Fund.

The scrapyard is itself part-designated as a special area of conservation because it sits on top of two metres of deep peat.

The trust is trying to raise £500,000 to complete the project, which also aims to restore swamp, fen, willow and alder carr wet woodland missing from the edge of the bog to provide homes for willow and marsh tit and rare bog wildlife.