Creating new meadows

Theme: Partnership projects

Project/Applicant Name: The Wildlife Trusts, Plantlife and Rare Breed Survival Trust

County: Across the UK

Grant Received: £1,000,000

The Coronation Meadows Restoration Project ran from 2014 – 2016, creating 300ha of flower-rich hay meadows as part of King Charles III call to create a least one new meadow in every county.

With a staggering 97% of meadows lost since the 1930s, King Charles III celebrated the 60th Anniversary of the Coronation by celebrated the best surviving meadow in each county as a “Coronation Meadow”.

A joint project between The Wildlife Trusts, Plantlife and the Rare Breed Survival Trust, a Biffa Award grant of just over £1 million allowed 60 meadows to be designated across the country and new meadows to be created using seeds from Coronation Meadows.

I fully appreciate just how many wildflower meadows had been lost over the past 60 years. This year, we are celebrating my mother’s coronation so surely there is no better moment to end this destruction and to stimulate a new mood to protect our remaining meadows and to use them as springboards for the restoration of other sites and the creation of new meadows right across the UK.

HRH King Charles III, March 2013

Coronation Meadows (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0KfngU1ydI)