Knots Landing

Project Name

RSPB Snettisham Storm Resilient Hide

Our Funding

£173,500

Total Project Cost

£278,067

RSPB Snettisham Nature Reserve in West Norfolk overlooks The Wash, one of Europe’s largest and most wildlife rich habitats. Every year hundreds of thousands of geese and wading birds arrive having flown many thousands of miles from the Arctic Circle. This spectacle attracts 25,000 visitors each year.

In December 2013, a tidal storm surge overwhelmed Snettisham’s banks and lagoons, completely destroying two viewing hides in the process. This project involved the replacement of those two hides with a larger, flood resilient hide.

The RSPB faced the challenge of designing and building a flood resilient hide that could accommodate approximately 80 people, that would provide excellent, panoramic views, whilst remaining stable on a shingle surface. The cost of a hide of this nature was greater than the RSPB’s crowd funding had raised, and they approached us with the idea of FCC Communities Foundation co-funding the project. In total the Board agreed to provide Flagship funding of £173,500 towards the project.

The build was complicated not only by the pandemic, but also by the access across the unstable shingle surface and the need to cease work during ground nesting season, but the hide was finally completed in June 2020.

The opening of the hide and celebration events have been severely affected by COVID-19 restrictions and although there has been an online virtual opening of the hide, it is not yet accessible to visitors. However the hide has delivered exactly what the RPSB hoped for, with panoramic views across The Wash to enable visitors, when they are able, to experience the wildlife spectacle whilst protecting the wader roost from disturbance.