Who is your wetland hero?
David Hindle
David is an author and naturalist from Lancashire. His books include birdwatching guides to Lancashire, Forest of Bowland and the Lake District as well as a history of his home village of Grimsargh, near Preston. He donates his royalties to good causes including WWT.
Grimsargh has three reservoirs that were built in 1834 to serve Preston Corporation waterworks. From 1939 they were the principal water source for the Courtaulds Rayon tyre factory. But the factory, with its local landmark twin chimneys, was demolished in the early 1980s and the reservoirs fell into disuse.
United Utilities took over ownership, and David bought a house that backed onto the land. In 2003 he collated his years of wildlife monitoring of the site into a biodiversity report which contributed to the reservoirs being designated in 2009 as a conservation area. But soon after, the owners came under pressure to release the land for a development of 150 new houses in order to help meet the expanding housing needs of Lancashire.
David is a Grimsargh Parish Councillor. He helped to negotiate, on behalf of the Parish Council, a deal with United Utilities and Preston City Council that saw only a dozen homes to be built on the site’s road frontage, which would help to finance the rest of the site as a nature reserve. The range of wildlife he had seen and recorded over decades helped to convince the water firm and City Council to develop houses elsewhere.
In 2017, United Utilities handed responsibility for the site to Grimsargh Parish Council – along with £192k to start off their plans to create a community-run wetland nature reserve.
David has been a key figure in forming the Grimsargh Wetlands Trust, which will manage the money, fundraise and recruit volunteers to transform the site into a public wetland nature reserve. David cites his inspiration for the project as being the Barn Elms Reservoirs in West London, which were transformed into WWT London Wetland Centre as part of a similar deal between conservationists, the local authority, a water company and a housing developer.
