This Lancashire hotel group has donated £5,000 for a tree planting initiative

English Lakes Hotels Resorts and Venues, which runs the art-deco Midland Hotel in Morecambe and the Lancaster House Hotel in Lancaster, is providing The Lune Rivers Trust with a £5,000 grant to support the creation of woodland along a section of Ellergill Beck in Bentham, just North of the Forest of Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

The funding from the English Lakes Hotels Trust Sustainability Fund will be used to plant 400 trees across an area of 0.33 hectares, together with associated stock fencing.

The hotel group has granted the funding as part of a larger overall Lune Rivers Trust project, the Ellergill Beck Woodland Creation, with a plan to plant 1,800 trees in all.

Andy Lemm from English Lakes Hotels Resorts and Venues said: "Conservation and environmental improvement projects like this are precisely what our sustainability fund is all about.

“We hope the Ellergill Beck Woodland Creation project will have long-term benefits on the environment, with the trees being planted in locations where they will make optimum impact on river catchment management and the protection of aquatic environments.”

The National Forest Inventory states that less than six per cent of Lancashire has tree cover. The Ellergill Beck Woodland Creation project is part of a larger 10-year campaign by Lune Rivers Trust, Ribble Rivers Trust and Wyre Rivers Trust which aims to double the area of woodland across the county.

Tim Pitt from The Lune Rivers Trust said: “We’re thrilled that the English Lakes Hotels Trust Sustainability Fund has been able to make such a valuable contribution to this project. The creation of riverside, riparian woodland has multiple environmental benefits.

"It helps to reduce flood risk by slowing flows, minimises the erosion of river banks, improves water quality and conditions for fish, and supports carbon sequestration.”

The Lune Rivers Trust is a charity dedicated to the conservation, protection, rehabilitation and improvement of the River Lune and its catchment tributaries from Tebay in Cumbria to Pilling in Lancashire.