The Conservative Government has just announced 22 projects which are a once-in-a-generation chance to restore nature in the countryside. The team I lead at Horsham District Council assisted a group of farmers to apply for the funding and we're delighted that they were chosen to be a part of the pilot.
The Adur River Restoration is a collaborative project to revitalise and restore the River Adur as a connected corridor of riparian life through Sussex and improve resilience to both drought and flooding. Farmers will explore ways to revive floodplains, increasing biodiversity and improving water quality whilst maintaining farming activity and food production. The work will connect significant sites of nature recovery in the catchment and create new habitats running through a wildlife-friendly, farmed landscape. The Adur runs through a highly populated area with complex land ownership and this project will have a strong focus on collaboration, open learning and public engagement.
I am excited to see how this project evolves over the next two years. It is brilliant that a group of farmers took on the opportunity rather than just one landowner or a charity, this is exactly how nature recovery across the country should be rolled out, with farmers and food production at the heart.
