As the Nature for Climate Peatland Restoration Grant Scheme comes to an end, we recognise that many partners in England faced a funding cliff edge that threatened the continued scale and pace of restoration delivery. We have voiced the concerns of delivery partners to Defra on many occasions over the last few months, and we were delighted to see launch of a new funding package of £25million for England’s degraded peatlands.

Alongside the other funding packages announced for peat, this brings the total funding available in England to £110 million through to 2030:

• The Lowland Peat Water Implementation Grant will provide £36 million to support improvements to water-level control structures in England's lowland peat areas. This funding will be delivered predominantly in agricultural areas and will facilitate water-table management, enabling future paludiculture and peatland restoration for nature conservation.
• The  Paludiculture and Wetter Farming Fund will provide £10 million in research and development funding to develop markets, particularly for Typha and Sphagnum, and to test new ways of working.
• The Peatland Restoration Sector Capacity Grant provides £1.15 million in grants of up to £20,000. It aims to support events, training, specialist machinery purchases, and apprenticeships.
• The Nature for Climate Peatland Grant Scheme has funded approximately £40 million of peatland restoration through to March 2027. Between 2027 and 2029, it will be replaced by the new Peatland Restoration Grant Scheme. The new funding aims to tackle the climate and nature crises, improve resilience to flooding and drought, and place particular emphasis on increasing wildfire resilience in restored peatlands.
• Further money from this £110mi budget was allocated to the England Peat Map project, Peatland Restoration Register and other project specific funding. 
• Additional funding is available for peatlands through ELMS (Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier and Landscape Recovery), although estimates of the total funding available through these routes are not yet available.

We are working closely with Defra and Natural England to ensure that restoration continues at pace and maximises opportunities for blended finance through the Peatland Code wherever possible.

We look forward to seeing the details of the forthcoming grant scheme and to continuing discussions with Defra about the additional mechanisms that could be put in place beyond 2029 to complement ELMS funding measures. The target of restoring 280,000 hectares of peatland in England by 2050 remains in place.