Defra puts £1.94m into Wildlife Trusts’ Rothbury Estate bid

The Government has pledged £1.94m towards The Wildlife Trusts’ £30m bid to buy the Rothbury Estate in Northumberland, one of the largest grants of the two-year appeal. The pledge from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) was announced on Saturday, 24 October at the UN biodiversity conference, COP17, in Armenia, and the trusts say it recognises the 9,486-acre estate as one of England’s most significant nature recovery opportunities.

Where does the appeal stand?

The Defra money joins a £5m grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund and more than £17m donated by individuals since the campaign began, alongside what the trusts describe as transformational gifts from funders and anonymous philanthropists. With the appeal in its final week before completion is due at the end of October, a match appeal is doubling every £1 given up to £150,000, and because the Government grant and some pledges will not be released until after the deadline, the trusts are also exploring low-interest loans to bridge the gap.

Craig Bennett, chief executive of The Wildlife Trusts, called the grant “this rubber stamp of approval from the government” and said it takes the charities a step closer to “one of the largest nature recovery projects England has ever seen”.

What does the purchase mean for a sporting estate?

Rothbury is a historic stretch of moorland, woodland, rivers and farmland that includes the Simonside Hills, and its sale marks another large northern upland passing from private sporting ownership into conservation hands, with future management choices on its moors resting with the trusts. The Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts and Northumberland Wildlife Trust, who are buying the estate together, say they want to restore nature at scale, strengthen nature-friendly farming, improve public access and avoid the land being broken into multiple ownerships. The uplands already hold curlew, lapwing and merlin, with red squirrels in the woods and salmon in the rivers, and the estate sits at the heart of a potential 40-mile nature recovery corridor from the north-east coast to Kielder.

What happens next

The purchase is due to complete at the end of October, and the match appeal runs until then. The trusts say they look forward to hearing how their plans will join the Government’s wider 30by30 commitment to protect 30% of land for nature by 2030; what the change of ownership means for shooting and land management on the estate will become clear as their plans firm up.