Chester Wetland Project
The Chester Wetland Centre is a community-led project to create exemplar wetland habitat with educational benefits within and adjacent to a popular country park near the Countess of Chester Hospital while improving water quality in a contaminated watercourse.
The original aim of creating a low-nutrient wet meadow within the country park while maximising opportunities from adjacent land owned by project partners was extended to maximise multiple benefits and natural capital functions via additional habitat creation and improved morphological diversity of the Finchett’s Gutter waterbody by ‘rewiggling or renaturalising’ it’s course, with access for the local community to help people connect, learn about and appreciate the nature it will attract.
Vsitors who walk through the area will experience a wet meadow habitat.
The Natural Capital benefits of the project including:
- improved community green/blue space access
- ecological connectivity & function
- improved water quality
- floodplain connectivity
- carbon sequestration
These have been valued at £1.6millon and the project has potential to attract funding support for some of these outcomes, in addition to delivering £600,000 worth of biodiversity units, to provide mitigation and uplift in habitats for development locally.
“Just reintroducing a once-common valuable habitat into our country park is important, but the [Chester Wetland Centre] project goes well beyond that. The benefits it delivers are significant, not just in terms of improved water quality, biodiversity net gain and improved carbon sequestration but also for the educational opportunities it will give us to work with schools, universities, and the local community.”
“Well-managed wetland habitats are essential if we are to combat the biodiversity and climate crisis, at both a local and a national level, and the Chester Wetland Centre project is set to be a clear example of best practice for the country. The project is set to become a clear example of best practice for the country on how to combat the biodiversity & climate crisis at a local level”
