Five minutes of your time to help the Cley and Salthouse Living Coast project

You will hopefully be aware of the very exciting plans to expand Cley Marshes nature reserve through the purchase of 140 acres of coastal marshes to the west. This will join Cley Marshes to our reserve at Salthouse Marshes, create a much larger area for wildlife, allow us to improve water level management for wildlife over the whole area, and make what is already an outstanding, internationally important wildlife area even better.

Cley Marshes at sunset, photo by Richard Osbourne

 

Linked to this project we also want to improve both education and interpretation facilities for our visitors. This will be achieved through a new building, the Simon Aspinall Wildlife Education Centre, to be built behind the existing visitor centre. In this position the building will be almost invisible from the nature reserve and will provide a valuable new facility for the many groups, local residents and general visitors who come to Cley. The new centre will assist us greatly in engaging visitors with the importance of the wildlife and habitats of this coastline.

We have applied to the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for support of the land purchase, its restoration and the new education centre which is where you can help. If you can spend five minutes completing our simple online questionnaire, the information you provide will be invaluable to support our application to HLF. This is a major project for NWT and Norfolk’s wildlife and the feedback we receive from our members and the wider public will help our bid for approximately £1.5million to support our vision.

Thanks for your help.

We would also love to hear why Cley is special to you. Did you first visit Cley as a child and see your first avocet or harrier there?  Have you brought your own children here to explore?  Share your special memories of Cley by emailing mycley@norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk or write to us. We are on Twitter using #mycley. Demonstrating how important Cley Marshes is, and how it has inspired people, will help us secure the HLF bid enabling us to make sure Cley continues to inspire future generations.