Sheep fences on Kinder Scout during £2.5m peat restoration

A public consultation on the five-year scheme, which is aimed at restoring the bare and degraded blanket peat landscape with gully-blocking, brash spreading and revegetation, was launched in December and has just ended.

Most people said they were in support of the project, which is being organised by groups including Natural England, the National Trust and United Utilities. As a result, a temporary fence will be installed later this month to prevent sheep from getting onto the land and allow the newly-planted vegetation to become established.

Mike Innerdale, general manager for the National Trust in the Peak District, said: “The majority of people were in support of our plans to install a fence to keep sheep off Kinder whilst the restoration work takes place and we’ve been able to work with them to find out where their favourite routes are, so that we can take these into account when we’re planning the access points for walkers in the line of the fence.”

Fence posts will be flown into Kinder by helicopter and put up over the next month by local contractor Allan Froggatt Fencing. Access points for walkers will be put in no further than 100m apart.

In the spring, 81,000 cotton grass plants will be planted to stabilise areas of bare peat and eroding gullies.

An additional 39,000 plants will be planted by the end of the summer and heather brash will also be spread across large areas of Kinder to encourage heather to re-seed.