As you may already know, at the end of August, we shared the news that we were successful in raising the £60,000 needed to buy and restore 11 vital acres of land at our Westhay Moor National Nature Reserve in the Avalon Marshes. Thanks to over 1,000 donors we hit the target in record time, demonstrating how much passion there is across the county for this very special place.

We wanted to give you a short update to let you what’s happened since.  Purchases of this kind never happen overnight. We are continuing to work with the current owners to complete all the necessary paperwork and legal requirements.  We’re now on the home straight and are really hoping to exchange on the purchase before Christmas. What a great gift to wildlife the land will be!

In the meantime we have been working with the owners to deliver some of the basic restoration work as part of their commitment to leaving the land in a good place for us to manage the land for maximum biodiversity gain once we own it and to connect it to the wider reserve in a way that ensures we can manage the hydrology of the site in a much more efficient way for the special and fragile habitats that exist there. It’s really exciting and we will continue to keep you up to date.

Thank you so much to everyone who supported our Westhay Moor appeal. We will let you know once we have completed the purchase of this land.