Trust given green light for wildlife haven after reaching £850,000 appeal target, writes HAYLEY COVER

The wildlife trust has successfully reached met its appeal target of £850,000 to buy one of the most important inland areas for wading birds in England. Just days before the December 1 deadline, the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust managed to raise the money and secure the land at Gallows Bridge Farm, near Bicester.

The floodplain meadow habitat on the Upper River Ray, at Marsh Gibbon, is home to a variety of wildlife, including curlew, lapwing and snipe.

Over the past 20 years there has been a 40 per cent loss of curlew and lapwing as a direct result of a loss of habitat. Gallows Bridge Farm is one of the few places where curlew still breed.

The trust'ss fundraising campaign received a generous legacy and a pledge of £200,000 from the Landfill Communities Fund of Waste Recycling Group, distributed by Wren (Waste Recycling Environmental).

Other pledges included £344,083 from the Tubney Charitable Trust, a charity created by Miles Blackwell, late chairman of Blackwell's.

Members of the public responded to the appeal and helped raise the remaining £150,000 the trust needed to save the haven.

Nigel Phillipscorr, head of landscape projects at BBOWT, said: "We are thrilled that we have managed to raise enough money to purchase this amazing piece of habitat and I can't wait to get out there and get on with the restoration.

"We continue to welcome donations towards restoring the area, including returning brooks and rivers to their natural courses and providing new ditches and scrapes for the curlew. The purchase is just the beginning. If we want this to be 'curlew country' then we are going to have to work hard at providing the right habitat for wildlife and to benefit people too."

The purchase of the land at Gallows Bridge Farm brings BBOWT an important step closer to fulfilling its 30-year vision of returning the area to a wild landscape, linking nature reserves and bringing back life to the meadows.

Returning the floodplain to a properly managed wetland will also help local people by acting as a natural flood defence, absorbing water which could cause problems downstream. The Tubney Charitable Trust's executive director Sarah Ridley said: "We are pleased to support the development of BBOWT's vision for a landscape rich in wildlife along the River Ray. These contained threatened habitats and species that are national priorities for protection and typical for this region."

BBOWT's chief executive Philippa Lyons said: "The generosity of the public has been tremendous and instrumental in securing the large pledges from funders without which we could not have hoped to have reached our target in such a short time."