Nature haven to expand after 'spectacular' appeal

Durham Wildlife Trust needed to raise £54,000 to unlock further funding to buy the land

A nature reserve is to be expanded after a "spectacular" fundraising appeal saved fields from a potential housing development.

Durham Wildlife Trust (DWT) launched a bid to raise £54,000 to buy land near its Rainton Meadows reserve in Houghton-le-Spring in June last year and smashed the target within a week.

The money helped unlock a £540,000 Biffa award from the government's Landfill Communities Fund and in March the trust will take over ownership of the fields.

Emily Routledge, DWT's head of development, said the "extraordinary and overwhelming" response to the fundraiser would help enhance habitats for wildlife.

The trust had said a housing development, which had previously been mooted, would be "detrimental" to the reserve where more than 200 bird species had been recorded.

While negotiations were ongoing with the fields' owner, a charitable lender bought the land for the trust while it raised enough funds to pay it back.

More than 200 bird species have been recorded at the reserve, DWT says

Ms Routledge said: "We were overwhelmed by the generosity of the support and the speed at which we reached, then exceeded our ambitious target.

"Purchasing this land will not just protect Rainton Meadows from the risk that development of the fields would pose, it will also enhance the wild space and improve vital habitat for species such as curlew and lapwing.

"We would like to thank everyone who donated to our appeal."

Emily Routledge of the DWT said the expansion of the reserve would boost "wild space"

Rachel Maidment, Biffa award grants manager, said: "The overwhelming response to the appeal is a testament to how much people value and want to protect their local wild spaces."

The nature reserve was created on the former Rye Hill opencast mine site in 1996 through a conservation partnership with UK Coal and the City of Sunderland.

DWT said the land had "incredible potential to deliver nature recovery" at a time when more than 97% of the UK's species-rich grassland had been lost in less than a century.

Plans include adding more plant species to the fields and implementing conservation grazing to boost grassland.

Ponds and wetland habitats will also be created and hedges planted to screen the site and prevent the disturbance of birds, the trust said.