Peatland Restoration Update | Forest of Bowland

2026/27

For 2026/27 we have had our application for £1.95m (full project value) granted by Natural England (our partnership with Cumbria Wildlife Trust and the National Trust). This will see £1.15m in grant and £391,000 in match funds being spent on peatland restoration in the Forest of Bowland across the financial year (from United Utilities, Grosvenor Estate and Lune Rivers Trust).

We have been working with the Environment Agency and specialist consultant to design a project which will aim to create an academically robust tool or model which will be able to quantify, more accurately than is possible now, the natural flood management benefits of peatland restoration interventions. Once operational, this should mean that we will be in a strong position to access capital grants in the future as we will be able to demonstrate the natural flood management benefits of specific projects as they pertain to related communities at risk of flooding. The initial presentation of the outputs will be shared with project partners in the week beginning 19^th October 2026, and we hope to apply the tool to our restoration planning going forwards to attract NFM funding for capital projects.

The Brock & Calder Landscape Recovery Project, which is due to enter delivery phase in the new financial year, is reaching final stages of negotiations and planning. The project includes c. 900ha of peatland restoration works, which we hope to support the delivery of in the first five years of the twenty-year project. We are currently working with the delivery team and Defra in order to finalise the monitoring plan for the project, as it presents a rare opportunity to fund peatland monitoring over a long period of time (funding cycles are currently year to year).

Our negotiations with United Utilities, mentioned in the June JAC update, have been successful and the peatland team at the National Landscape has, as of 1^st September this year, expanded from one to seven (up to the end of March 2030). We are currently supporting United Utilities with a large-scale survey project across the county (linked to dissolved organic carbon reaching drinking water treatment centres), and the team is aiming to survey c. 4500ha between September and the end of March 2026. The new team members are Nathan Thomas, Emily East, Jake Phillips, Valerie Robichaud, Bingzhang He and Matt Radcliffe. Whilst all bring previous peatland experience to the National Landscape team, they also have a range of wider specialisms including invertebrates, birds, scientific monitoring, botany (with a specific focus on mosses and lichens) and mountain leadership.

Beyond this financial year, we will be supporting United Utilities on three other peatland projects between now and the end of March 2030. In addition, we will continue to work with any and all other stakeholders who wish to engage with us on peatland restoration survey, planning and delivery. We anticipate another year of the Nature for Climate Peatland Grant Scheme (or similar) to be open for applications soon – this scheme has been the main funder of restoration in Bowland over the past five years.

Finally, an application made to the National Landscapes Association has recently been successful. We have been awarded c. £145,000 to purchase monitoring equipment (automated dipwell and barometric loggers, cellular weather stations, audiomoths) which will greatly improve quality of the baseline data we gather, as well as the monitoring of benefits associated with peatland restoration.