Manchester’s rural wasteland is a valuable resource
Chat Moss reminds us that cities rely on nearby countryside in ever-changing ways
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Chat Moss is a large area of peat bog — about 10 square miles of green belt land, five miles to the west of Manchester. It is surrounded by dense residential and urban areas; 1.5 million people live within 10 miles of Chat Moss. The peatlands of Chat Moss are an important natural and cultural heritage asset that the most significant carbon capture landscape, and productive farmland, in Greater Manchester.
In terms of natural heritage, multiple areas within Chat Moss are protected as special areas of conservation and scientific interest. The peatland is a habitat for a number of rare plant species and animals that are under threat nationally such as the brown hare and water vole. The landscape helps to combat climate change, acting as a carbon sink that, when in good condition, removes at least 200 tonnes of carbon, annually, per km2 from the atmosphere.
The peatlands contain and preserve the area’s cultural and environmental past. Passing through in 1724, Daniel Defoe wrote ‘What nature meant by such a useless production, ’tis hard to imagine; but the land is entirely waste’.
Since its discovery in 1958, Worsley Man, a well-preserved ‘bog body’ that is thought to date back to 120 AD, has captured the imagination. Chat Moss is also an important recreational asset for the surrounding area, somewhere that many older people remember exploring as children.
Chat Moss has many different meanings to people, depending on how and when people visited. Now, as neighbouring places join under a single combined authority, understanding and communicating the inter-relationships between city and countryside will take on a new dimension.
While it undoubtedly provides under-appreciated benefits for those who live in the surrounding area it remains a bog riddled with natural and manmade barriers — it has always been both difficult to access and to cross. Reframing the conversation around the peatlands and emphasising its importance and its uniqueness to local people is an important process to ensure that generations are able to make the most of Chat Moss. Long-term support for wildlife and biodiversity protection is built through projects which connect people with the natural landscape — albeit one subject to generations of human influence. Chat Moss is well known; recent projects have tried to make it better understood.
Historically, connections and dependencies between cities and their rural hinterlands were more tangible. Chat Moss was drained, fertilised (with Manchester’s waste), and cultivated as farmland through the 19th Century, feeding the growing population of Greater Manchester.
In World War Two, Chat Moss protected nearby towns and cities from bombing by serving as a ‘Starfish’ decoy site. Fake street lighting was erected and simulated incendiary bomb explosions aimed to trick German night bombers to miss their intended urban targets.
The relationship has now changed to one where the hinterlands provide a different sort of support for those in the urban centres. People in the dense urban development that surrounds Chat Moss are in need of green, wild and open spaces to relax, exercise, play and learn. The landscape also regulates the ability to manage water flows, locally, and carbon flows, globally. Connecting this resource with an opportunity for educational and mind-opening experiences is crucial to the future success of Chat Moss and supports the development of its heritage potential. Landscape and natural heritage assets can contribute to a sense of identity and can help to build community pride and activities centred around a shared space.
A survey carried out in 2011 indicated that local people would like to see Chat Moss restored for wildlife and amenity use. People’s ability to shape heritage is limited by the confidence and skills they have, and the tools that others make available. The poor accessibility of Chat Moss simultaneously makes visiting difficult, but rewards visitors with peace and solitude.
Future interventions at Chat Moss, supported in part by Heritage Lottery Fund, will create opportunities for people to experience raised bogs and to learn about this vitally important natural resource that lies on their doorstep.
A large number of partner organisations were identified who shared an interest in the future of Chat Moss. As part of our ‘networked heritage’ approach, involving the people that use heritage assets and those that the project seeks to reach who may not have benefitted in the past, is considered crucial. Recognising that their value can be expressed through many different channels is key to finding the most productive use for heritage assets.
As the UK’s carbon budget takes on greater importance over the course of this century, a renewed appreciation for peat bogs is likely to materialise: they are the most effective carbon storage of any natural landscape. As our identity shifts to take on a global dimension, responding to the global challenge of climate change, local assets which make a distinct contribution will become more significant in understanding of place.
