What the cluster is
The Upper Medway Land Stewards Cluster brings together holdings across roughly 700 acres of the Upper Medway catchment — the headwaters above the Eden. We are farmers, land managers and landholders who have agreed that the work of restoring nature, rebuilding soils and managing water well cannot stop at the fenceline.
Incorporated as a Community Interest Company in early 2026, the cluster exists so that we can act coherently as a landscape: coordinating habitat creation, sharing infrastructure and knowledge, navigating the policy and funding environment together, and speaking with one voice when it matters.
What we do
Habitat & natural systems
Coordinated habitat creation, connectivity and improvement across the cluster — biodiversity, water, soil health, hedgerows, wetlands and riparian work.
Infrastructure & local food
Shared equipment and supply-chain connections that strengthen the local rural economy and food network.
Policy & funding
An incorporated body through which public and private funding for natural capital and public goods can be appropriately managed.
Land steward network
Regular information, training and social events. Stewarding land can be isolating — the cluster is how we stay connected.
Engagement & education
Sharing what we learn inside the cluster and with the wider public, working with local government, NGOs and statutory stakeholders.
Species in focus
The High Weald, which the cluster sits within, is one of the UK's last strongholds for nightingales — a Red List bird that has declined by more than 90% nationally since the 1960s. The cluster is well placed to help, at exactly the scale the species needs.
Why now
The cluster builds on the Upper Medway & Shovelstrode Catchment Group project of winter 2024–25, funded by the High Weald National Landscape Farming in Protected Landscapes scheme. That project showed what coordinated working at catchment scale can do — better deer management across boundaries, well-attended social and information events, and the beginnings of a real landscape-scale plan. The CIC is the next step: a durable structure that can hold funding, partnerships and the collective will of the cluster for years to come.
Get in touch
If you are a land manager in the Upper Medway above the Eden and want to know more about joining, or a partner organisation interested in working with the cluster, we would like to hear from you.
Contact the cluster