£1 rent for farmer to take on fragile headland

Last year the Trust bought land on Great Orme, north Wales, including the 145-acre Parc Farm, with its views of Anglesey and the coast, and grazing rights to 720-acres of headland.

The deal aimed to protect the habitats of unique and rare plants and animals and save grasslands from conversion into a golf course.

Now, the Trust is seeking a farmer who is willing to take on the “nature-first” approach to grazing the coastal headland.

General manager William Greenwood said: “Unless we implement a very specific grazing regime we will not see these most fragile habitats recover.

“To ensure a healthy and beautiful landscape we need the most agriculturally productive pasture land to be grazed less, and the least agriculturally productive grassland to be grazed more.”

The unconventional method of regularly moving the sheep will mean long hours shepherding on often tricky terrain and working round the Great Orme’s 600,000 annual visitors, the Trust said.

But the successful candidate will get a 10-year farm business tenancy for just £1 a year, while conservation charity Plantlife has pledged to buy the new tenant the flock of sheep needed.

The headland is designated as a protected area for nature, and its fragile limestone grasslands are home to sub-species of silver-studded blue and grayling butterflies and a plant, the wild cotoneaster, found nowhere else on earth.