Celebration held at one of Cheshire's largest woodlands
The completion of a successful £620,000 fundraising campaign to buy, restore and manage a diverse 60-hectare (150-acre) woodland site in the heart of Cheshire was marked in style by the Woodland Trust.
Dutton Park Farm, near Acton Bridge and Frodsham, in the Mersey Forest, sits in the Weaver Valley Regional Park and has been bought by the Trust to ensure the site is restored, extended and safeguarded for all. To mark its acquisition, the Trust held and open day and treated scores of local supporters to a guided tour of the historic woodland.
Dutton Park Farm is very special because it has it all – ancient woodland, wetland, meadow, areas of young trees and some arable land. Cheshire has only four per cent woodland cover of which less than one per cent is ancient. Ancient woodland is our equivalent of the rainforest and irreplaceable.
The Trust now plans to involve 1,500 young people in creating up to 20 hectares (48 acres) of new woodland, restore 10 hectares (24 acres) of wet meadow and wetland habitats, as well as install 4km of new pathways and interpretation boards.
Trust head of regional development Laura Judson said: “We started many months ago with an ambitious project and a vision for a conservation partnership to protect a mosaic of habitats. At the time we didn't know whether we would be successful, but it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that we felt we simply had to go for. Others felt the same and the first support came from Cheshire Rural Recovery, which gave us the confidence to go forward. This was backed up with support from the Environment Agency, The Mersey Forest, the Countryside Agency, local company Links Controls, the Forestry Commission, local people, members of the Cheshire Wildlife Trust and Woodland Trust and many, many more. Final support also came with thanks to the Landfill Tax credit funding from Waste Recycling Group Ltd, which is administered by WREN."
Dutton Park Farm is in a stunning location and a wildlife oasis set in the middle of a very intensively-farmed part of the UK. It is spanned by the 22-arch Dutton Viaduct, which was built in the 1830s, and is bordered by the historic Weaver Navigation – a section of the River Weaver, which was converted into a ship canal during the 1700s to carry ocean-going vessels. But the work left a string of ox-bow lakes stranded in the base of the valley, which have now become a critical refuge for a host of rare and endangered aquatic species. At nearby Park Brow, a steep, unprotected strip of ancient woodland on the east side of the site, the Trust plans to concentrate much of its restoration work and ensure rare plants and flowers are encouraged to return to the area. In time it is hoped even more rare birds and mammals will return to the area like kingfishers, owls, badgers and otters.
