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£50,000 appeal launched
Chief: Anne Selby
A crisis appeal has been launched to raise £50,000 to keep parts of Lancashire’s countryside alive.
The Lancashire, Manchester and Merseyside Wildlife Trust has asked its members for cash to help it carry out projects on new swathes of habitats across the region, including on Winmarleigh Moss, between Lancaster and Fleetwood.
It bought the land from the Duchy of Lancaster and must now carry out work to put in access roads and remove trees which are drying out the environment, home to a number of endangered species.
Trust chief executive Anne Selby said the acquisition had ramped up its costs at a time when it was suffering the impact of “devastating cuts” to funding available.
She said: “We have increased our land holdings on top of the ones we already held and we need the wherewithall to ensure we can maintain them.
“To an extent that requires volunteers, but it also requires hard cash and that is why we are making this appeal.”
It has also acquired land at Lunt Meadows, north of Liverpool, and Cutacre at Tyldesley, near Wigan, in recent months.
The trust’s annual accountants showed its overall revenues slumped by half to £4.61m in the past year, compared with £9.25m, due largely to funding cuts and the drain of setting up its Brockholes reserve near Preston.
But, the chief executive said the trust had slashed its overheads due to cutting its workforce from around 190 workers to just 90.
Mrs Selby said she believed Brockholes would prove to be an asset for the trust.
She said: “It may be a close run thing because times are tough, but we feel we are doing the right thing and that work will pay off.”
The trust has also signed a deal with the Highways Agency to allow it to have brown tourism signs on the M6 motorway, which passes the reserve.
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Weather for Preston
Sunday 19 May 2013
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 10 C to 16 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 11 C to 16 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: North west
