Link Together

By Anne Gladwin

Link Together Project Manager

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urham Wildlife Trust’s vision is of a thriving natural world, with wildlife and natural habitats playing a valued role in addressing the climate and ecological emergencies, inspiring communities to get involved in nature’s recovery. The Trust is firmly rooted in our local communities, looking after wild places, increasing people’s understanding of, and connection to, the natural world, and promoting the significant role nature can play in keeping people healthy. Link Together is a new project, based in the Sunderland Coalfields, which brings all these elements together. The Trust will be working in partnership with Sunderland City Council and Wear Rivers Trust to deliver significant nature restoration and access improvements across 13 council-owned sites. The project will create a vibrant wildlife-rich network, and local communities from across the Coalfields will be encouraged to get involved, through volunteering, learning, and training. Visiting, using and caring for their local greenspace to create benefits for nature and themselves.

Funding to develop the first phase of Link Together has been secured with a grant of £149,462 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF), and £20,000 match funding from Sunderland Council via the Coalfield Area Committee. The newly appointed Project Manager, Anne Gladwin, will be working with various partners and communities across Copt Hill, Shiney Row, Houghton-le-Spring, and Hetton-le-Hole, to develop, then submit, a second-stage application to the NLHF at the end of 2023. The project delivery stage will then start in 2024 and last for two years. Link Together will deliver a significant programme of habitat management on greenspaces close to where people live. The sites vary in size and character, including nature reserves, parks, woodlands, watercourses, and the former Elemore Golf Course. The work will restore priority habitats such as broadleaf woodlands, acid and magnesian limestone grasslands, meadows, fens, streams, and ponds, as well as creating new habitats with woodland planting and pond creation. New signage, footpaths and information will help to make sites feel more welcoming and accessible, and encourage more people to enjoy them. Read more about some of the sites included in Link Together: Hetton Bogs is a wonderful place - designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), with lowland fen and semi-natural broadleaf woodland. A place to see kingfisher and, perhaps, greenshank. Former Elemore Golf Course’s vast areas of grassland will be transformed with woodland planting, new wetland scrapes and ponds. New pathways will create links to other greenspaces, and the site will be a fantastic community resource for enjoying and accessing nature. Flint Mill is a large greenspace on the Moors Burn, with areas of woodland and grassland. Additional woodland and hedge planting, and improved grassland management, will create a valuable wildlife stepping-stone from adjacent housing to the wider countryside. The Coalfield communities will be at the heart of Link Together. New opportunities to connect with nature will be developed through social prescribing, volunteering, training programmes and education, so that everyone can build nature into their daily lives, and reap the rewards by feeling healthier and happier.

Find out more and get involved: durhamwt.com/link-together