Regional water firm, United Utilities, has let large parcels of land in the Goyt Valley and High Peak to two young farmers who are breathing new life into the Peak District.
The water firm’s estates and land manager, Ross Evans, says it is trying to encourage new young entrants to the agricultural land sector to drive the future of the industry.
Sam Bolton from Macclesfield has been a tenant of United Utilities for five years – the 29-year-old has recently taken on 1,000 hectares of land in the Goyt Valley for his ever-expanding flock of Mule and Swaledale sheep.
This part of the valley has not been grazed for 20 years - United Utilities is hoping the flock will improve habitat management and reduce the risk of wildfire.
The young farmer got his first six sheep for his 16th birthday and in the intervening years has grown his flock to total 1200.
Alistair Bland, the 24-year-old son of one of the water firm’s tenant farmers, has also recently taken on the management of a large holding owned by United Utilities. In 2019, he took charge of 70 acres of United Utilities land where he keeps 250 Cheviot Mule and North of England Mule ewes.
In his new position as farm manager of a 4500 acre hill farm at Crowden in High Peak he will be primarily breeding Swaledale draft ewes and mule ewe lambs.
Ross Evans said the aim of the tenancies is to manage the land in an environmentally-sensitive way in order to maintain good water quality, commenting:
“Around 70 per cent of our tenanted land is within a government environmental scheme and these tenancies are making an important contribution to this.”
“On these particular land holdings, our tenants are involved in tackling important climate change measures through their active land management.”
The reintroduction of grazing on certain sites and wider habitat management is also expected to encourage breeding birds and rare species back to the area such as curlews, redshanks and oystercatchers.
United Utilities has a long history of protecting and enhancing the water environment through managing the land with nature, wildlife and biodiversity enhancement as key drivers.
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