Coast to Fell Project

Working with farmers, landowners, volunteers and partner organisations from 2022-2025, Cumbria Wildlife Trust’s ‘Coast to Fell’ project funded by National Highways has helped restore grasslands across Cumbria, including three sites across the Lake District National Park. The aim of the project was to increase the floral diversity of degraded hay meadows and limestone grasslands, in collaboration with the National Trust, Arnside and Silverdale National Landscapes and Kendal Conservation Volunteers.

The project included a programme of botanical field surveys of meadows and pastures to establish a baseline of their habitat condition, and to assess suitability for restoration. Restoration activities were carried out between 2022 and 2024. At two of the Lake District sites this involved seeding with locally sourced Cumbrian meadow seed to establish a more diverse species mix. All three sites were enhanced by planting wildflower plug plants to further increase diversity. In total, with the invaluable support of volunteers, 11,965 locally sourced plug plants were planted at the three Lake District sites (and 19,500 in total across the six Cumbria sites).

The project also hosted smallholder days and skills sharing events, where attendees were taught survey and monitoring skills. One farmer involved in the project, recounts:

“We are wanting to build biodiversity throughout our farm. That aim is woven into all our decisions and planning. This project gave us a welcome boost and has moved our hay meadow restoration forward more quickly than we had hoped possible. Along with a boost to traditional flower species we even saw our first Curlew pair nesting in one of our fields, first time since the 1980s.”

The Coast to Fell project has restored a total of 27.3 hectares of species-rich grassland across Cumbria, creating a fantastic grassland habitat for nature to thrive. The restored grassland will give pollinators and other wildlife more opportunities for foraging and help reconnect fragmented habitats. These are all rural sites, in areas of high natural beauty; enhancing farmed grassland in these areas will add to the mosaic of habitats already present whilst supporting less intensive agricultural management.

Cumbria Wildlife Trust has been working with farmers, landowners and organisations to deliver meadow restoration throughout Cumbria for over 20 years. Since 2008 they have completed restoration of 175 meadows totalling 327ha – but there is always more to do!