Lancashire Peat Partnership

This £1.4 million project is working to restore peatlands across the Forest of Bowland National Landscape. Funded by the Government’s Nature for Climate Peatland Restoration Grant Scheme, the project will run over four years and put 170 hectares of precious upland blanket bog habitat into restoration.

This peatland restoration project is being delivered jointly via two of the Great North Bog peat partnerships covering Lancashire and Cumbria. Key organisations involved are Cumbria Wildlife Trust, the Forest of Bowland National Landscape, National Trust, United Utilities, Abbeystead Estates and Lowther Estates.

Thanks to funding from the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, Lancashire Wildlife Trust is able to host and co-ordinate the Lancashire Peatlands Partnership.

The LWT Peatlands Programme also undertakes significant work across many of our region’s lowland peatlands. This includes restoration work on peatland nature reserves, along with pioneering projects investigating alternative land management options for lowland agricultural peat such as carbon farming or wetter farming models.

Find out more about projects including:

• Winmarleigh carbon farm
• Rindle wetter farming trial
• Species reintroduction

Holcombe Moor is part of the West Pennine Moors in Lancashire and owned by the National Trust. In partnership with Moors for the Future Partnership, Natural England and the Holcombe Moor Commoners’ Association, and with support from DEFRA’s Moor Carbon fund, a new programme of important work began in 2020 to improve Holcombe Moor peatland.

The project aims to restore the carbon storage capacity of the peat, improve wildlife habitats, reduce flooding downstream and improve accessibility for people to enjoy this amazing area. Stone leaky dams have been installed to slow the flow of water from the moor via the eroded gullies, bunding and bog pools created to help re-wet the peat, and sphagnum moss is being planted to re-vegetate bare peat areas.

Find out more about the Holcombe Moor Restoration Project

As part of the Pendle Hill Landscape Partnership, the Forest of Bowland AONB team along with support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Lancashire Environmental Fund, Downham Estate and In Situ Arts helped put 18 hectares of peat under restoration, including:

• Re-profiling the edges of the peat hags and the gullies to reduce peat erosion
• Installing coir logs to slow the flow of water
• Covering the bare peat with heather brash cut from the hill to encourage re-vegetation
• Seeding with upland grasses and bog forming sphagnum mosses
• Planting cotton grass plug plants to help start the revegetation process.

Volunteers helped with plug planting and re-seeding the newly profiled areas and they will also continue monitoring the area in conjunction with the Forest of Bowland Priority Peat programme.

Find out more about the Pendle Hill Summit Project and watch the restoration video.

Led by Lancashire Wildlife Trust an area of Darwen Moor, in the West Pennine Moors has been surveyed and a restoration plan is being drawn up. Funding has been sought from the Government’s Nature for Climate Peatland Restoration Grant Scheme to put 220 hectares of this iconic landscape into restoration. This will include gully blocking with peat, stone and timber dams, hagg re-profiling, the installation of contour bunding and plug planting of classic peatland plant species.

Following the devastating wildfire in 2018 that tore through much of Winter Hill in the West Pennine Moors, huge areas of the blanket bog peatland were left bare, with the peat at heightened risk of erosion and releasing huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Since then, Moors for the Future have undertaken a number of restoration activities.

The next phase in Winter Hill’s recovery will be led by United Utilities, working with partners from across the Lancashire Peat Partnership. The latest proposals will include further grip blocking and improvements to older existing grips to allow further re-wetting, works to restore vegetation and promote the regrowth of target species such as sphagnum moss, works to restore areas of deep burn caused by the fire, and improvements to popular visitor routes.