Wetlands celebrate 50 years of wildlife wonders

An urban nature oasis for people and wildlife is marking its 50th anniversary. TONY HENDERSON reports

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FIFTY years ago the first visitors filed into a 103-acre green enclave on the banks of the industrialised River Wear.

Their admission fee of 40p for adults and 20p for youngsters bought the opportunity to glimpse a vision to create an urban oasis with conservation of wetland birds at its core, in addition to being a leisure attraction providing access to nature for adults and children.

They could take in 35 ponds housing 890 rare and endangered wetland birds from across the world, a large reservoir, a reedbed along the river bank, and the site’s Wader Lake and the sandpiper pool, converted into a saline lagoon in 2013 for wild native species.

The former farmland had been acquired two years earlier by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust founded by Sir Peter Scott, son of the Arctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott.

Peter Scott was friends with local businessman Sir James Steel, chairman of Washington Development Corporation from 1964 until 1977 and Lord Lieutenant of Tyne & Wear from 1974 to 1984, who introduced him to the area.