Fueled By Local People, the Restoration Of Kinder Scout Begins.

The National Trust in the Peak District has teamed up with the Biffa Awards Scheme, United Utilities and Natural England’s Environmental Stewardship Scheme to deliver a £2.5 million project to restore Kinder Scout driven by the views of local people. Over a period of 5 years extensive conservation work will be undertaken in order to regenerate vast areas of the bare and degraded blanket peat landscape for the future.

To ensure success of this project a temporary fence will be erected around Kinder Scout to keep sheep, but not people, off the moorland. This will allow the newly planted vegetation to become established, while keeping access to Kinder Scout open for walkers. Consultation for the fence was launched in December 2010 to give local people the chance to have their say on the plans. This included public meetings in Edale and Hayfield, along with feedback via the Kinder Scout website. 

Mike Innerdale, General Manager for the National Trust in the Peak District says:  “Kinder Scout is loved by thousands of people who live locally or visit the area so it was important to us that those people had the opportunity to play a part in helping us plan the line of the fence and the best access for walkers.” The consultation found that the majority of people were in support of the plans to install the fence whilst the restoration work takes place. The favourite routes of walkers, along with Public Rights of way, were taken into account in order to establish the best access points for walkers in the line of the fence. These access points will be no further than 100m apart and will take the form of a step over stile.

The first phase of the fencing will begin later this month, with work being done by local contractor, Allan Froggatt Fencing. The work will see the fence posts being flown into the remote site by helicopter.

As soon as the fencing is in position, restoration work will start with the planting of 81,000 cotton grass plants to stabilise areas of bare peat and eroding gullies. An additional 39,000 plants will be planted by the end of the summer, with many more over the next few years.  In addition to this, heather brash will be spread across large areas of Kinder Scout to encourage heather to re-seed and large numbers of erosion gullies will be blocked each winter to help keep the peat wet and encourage the new vegetation to thrive.

As the moorland vegetation re-establishes, local wildlife will benefit, including priority species such as Skylark, Dunlin and Curlew. In addition to this, the regeneration will help improve water quality by reducing suspended sediments, colour and dissolved organic carbon, which will in turn reduce water treatment costs. Philip Weiss, the new Kinder Scout Catchment Project Officer, said, “This is an exiting partnership and a project where everyone, visitors, water customers and the environment, are winners”.

If you’d like to find out more about the project as it progresses visit www.kinder-scout.co.uk