Lunt Meadows Wetlands Nature Reserve

The project focuses on access and interpretation at a newly created wetland site at Lunt Meadows on the flood plain of the River Alt on Merseyside. Environment Agency flood alleviation work is being carried out on this site and once completed, the site will be managed as a Wetland Nature Reserve by the Lancashire Wildlife Trust under a 15 year lease and agreed 25 year management plan. The wetland creation project will convert the majority of the sites arable land into a combination of reedbed and wet floodplain grazing marsh, fed by diverting part of the flow of the River Alt through the site resulting in conditions suitable for reed growth, which in turn improves the quality of discharges to the river by filtering out nutrients and sediments. During the monitoring of the groundwork for the flood alleviation scheme three important early prehistoric hunter-gatherer settlements were identified.