Gaywood Valley Living Landscape Appeal

We need your help with an urgent and exciting opportunity that has been offered to Norfolk Wildlife Trust: the purchase of 95 acres of land directly adjacent to NWT Roydon Common. The land will safeguard the future of an extremely rare habitat, and allow us to expand our Gaywood Valley Living Landscape, creating a stunning heathland for wildlife and people to enjoy.

NWT Roydon Common is the largest surviving open heath in west Norfolk and is a highly protected site:

• a National Nature Reserve
• a Special Area of Conservation
• a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI)

It is home to some of the county’s rarest wildlife such as nightjar, woodlark, black darter dragonfly, lesser butterfly orchid, sundew, water vole, otter, adder, 31 species of butterfly and 23 species of nationally scarce invertebrates. Winter roosting birds of prey including hen harrier, merlin and short-eared owl.

We have considered this land to be a priority for a very long time as it is so important to our vision of A Living Landscape for Norfolk. We managed to secure it at auction and have paid a deposit. We now have until March 2012 to raise the money required to complete the purchase: £530,000. This is a major challenge for the Trust, but had we not acted immediately to secure this land, the consequences would have been devastating for both the rare wildlife and for visitors to the nature reserve.

Chief Executive of Norfolk Wildlife Trust Brendan Joyce: “NWT faced stiff competition to buy the land and we now urgently need to raise the funds to complete the purchase. Our teams are working to raise funds from charitable trusts and grant funding sources but we desperately need support and donations from local people. I am appealing to everyone in Norfolk to help us with whatever they can afford to ensure protection for rare heathland wildlife and habitat. It is an enormous amount of money we need to raise and in return for your support you have my commitment that the Trust will continue to work tirelessly for wildlife and people in Norfolk.”

Whatever you can donate will bring us closer to extending Roydon Common with this land and safeguarding the wildlife that relies on its presence, quality and our pioneering management.

If you have supported our appeal, thank you. If you have yet to make a donation, please do so today. Click here to donate.

"Open Heathland is rarer than rainforest"   ~  Natural England, 2002

More than three-quarters of the UK's lowland heath has been lost since 1800, including more than 80% of heathland in Norfolk. That makes it one of the fastest-declining habitats in Europe.

NWT is working hard in this area of Norfolk, known as the Gaywood Valley Living Landscape, to restore this important heathland habitat and protect the wildlife that relies on it. NWT Grimston Warren, a former conifer plantation next to Roydon Common, has been restored to heathland by NWT over the past decade. In 2010, the Trust successfully secured 20 hectares (50 acres) of farmland adjacent to Grimston Warren, known as The Delft, which is now also in the process of being restored to heathland.

Map by Paul Westley

Ways to make a donation

Call

Download our Appeal leaflet with further information and donation form (1MB)

Wildlife and Habitats In the Gaywood Valley Living Landscape