The National Trust and financial services firm Admiral have launched a three-year partnership to scale nature-based flood management across upland landscapes in England and Wales.
The programme is backed by £600,000 from Admiral Group’s Green Fund and will restore degraded habitats to slow water flow, store carbon and improve biodiversity in three sites: Eryri (Snowdonia), the Holnicote Estate in Somerset and the Lake District.
With one in six UK homes already at risk of flooding, projected to rise to one in four by 2050, the effort is a practical response to intensifying climate impacts. The programme will use proven interventions such as rewetting bogs, reshaping eroded peat and creating ponds to hold water higher in the catchment, reducing peak flows downstream.
The approach is designed to deliver co-benefits: cutting carbon emissions from degraded peatlands, improving water quality and rebuilding habitats for threatened species.
Getting bogged down
Work has begun on the Migneint blanket bog, one of Wales’s largest and most biodiverse upland peatland systems. Over the next three years, a £180,000 project will restore around 12 hectares of severely eroded peat.
Contractors are reprofiling peat hags, installing peat dams and creating shallow pools to raise the water table and encourage the return of sphagnum moss. Rewetting is expected to reduce carbon loss from exposed peat and slow runoff into tributaries of the Afon Conwy, where heavy rainfall can trigger flooding through the Conwy Valley.
Peatlands cover 10% of the UK’s total land area, but Defra estimates that 87% of England’s peatlands are degraded. Key drivers of peatland damage include changing weather patterns, land-use change for business purposes and peat extraction.
The ecological benefits of the Migneint blanket bog project, alongside flood prevention, include softer, wetter ground to support wading birds and boost invertebrate life. Early signs of landscape recovery are expected by summer 2026 as vegetation establishes.
Restoration will pause in spring to protect ground-nesting birds.
The Migneint activity builds on years of peatland work under the Uwch Conwy project and contributes to long-term goals for the Special Area of Conservation, returning it to be a healthy and functional blanket bog – a wetland rich in wildlife.
Working alongside the community, tenant farmers and others, demonstrates investment in nature will directly circle back to supporting the communities for generations to come.
UK flood risks rising
A recent analysis by the Infrastructure Policy Advancement (IPA) think tank has warned that flood clean-up and recovery could cost UK councils up to £566m each year as extreme climate risks increase.
In an examination of data from 382 districts, the IPA found that 57% of councils’ sewer systems had been overwhelmed in the last decade, pointing to critical gaps in infrastructure capacity amid intensifying weather patterns.
Admiral are investing in natural flood management solutions to strengthen flood resilience for people and nature. Protecting people’s homes means taking action beyond insurance by building understanding and resilience to the impact of the changing climate and extreme weather events.
