Nature’s resilience reclaims a corner of Pembroke refinery

A corner of Pembroke’s refinery, Kilpaison Bunds, has featured on the BBC as an example of nature reclaiming and flourishing on a decommissioned industrial site.

Bunds are walled containments that in a refinery surround tanks to contain any spilt material in the event of a leak. When the BP site at Kilpaison was decommissioned 50 years ago, the 14 storage tanks were removed from land that is now owned by Valero, leaving just the bunds. The site is secure within land owned by the Pembroke refinery and is not open to the public, so nature has been allowed to take over.

Nature’s reclaiming of Kilpaison was the subject of Episode 1 of the BBC programme Iolo’s Pembrokeshire in July. Iolo Williams, the nature observer, TV presenter and Welsh national treasure, compared the size of the site with 25 rugby pitches, about 45 acres.

At Kilpaison, Williams found pyramidal orchids and silver-studded blue butterflies on his exploration of the site. He spotted two of the butterflies mating in the small window of the mating season, which the camera crew captured in beautiful high-resolution detail.

The large and small bunds provide different types of sites for vegetation and wildlife, with some areas wetter than others. While the site has been given over to nature, it still needs managing.

Valero’s Hywel Gibbs spoke to Williams during the filming. Williams said, “[Kilpaison’s] got to rank with one of the best [reclaimed sites], when you think of the variety of wildlife that’s here and the way it’s managed. You get cattle in at the right time of year and you need that as without it … bramble and willow would take over, so you need that level of grazing and trampling to keep the place open, which keeps that diversity of wildlife here.”

Valero owns 500-600 acres of farmland outside the refinery fence, let out to tenant farmers, who work with Valero to allow in cattle from time to time to keep the brambles down.  

Tom Day, Senior Health, Environment & Safety Specialist, explained that Valero works with a variety of groups at Kilpaison. The company has local links with its regulators, Natural Resources Wales, and other stakeholders in the Milford Haven waterways, including the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority and Pembrokeshire County Council.

He said that the company has worked collaboratively with these organisations to protect and enhance the biodiversity within the bunds. Valero Volunteers have also held a number of volunteering events at the bunds and installed Shelduck nest boxes and teamed up with representatives from the Bumblebee Conservation Trust to create habitat in the bunds.

“We have worked with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, creating a habitat for the rare shrill carder bumblebee, which prefers sheltered areas with plenty of food. We cleared large areas of scrub and gorse and planted wild meadow seed. The shrill carder bee is rare and was identified on the nearby Castlemartin MOD range and we are trying to encourage them around to Angle Bay by creating suitable habitat there.”

Williams is optimistic. “You hear so much bad news these days about a wildlife site that has been lost, a woodland that has been felled or a hay meadow that has been ploughed up. And then you find somewhere like this that 50 years ago would have been a huge tank of oil, people everywhere, lorries coming and going and it’s been left to go wild, just look at the colours.

“It’s wonderful to see so much wildlife on this old industrial site. It just goes to show that if you leave a place alone for long enough, nature will move in.”