La Tour > Sheffield. Bog Boost Business. Bird Ringing. Bog Burners
Sunday at Bill's Mother's: 18th January 2026
Morning. A news edition today, including £25 million for local landscape restoration and rewilding, and the announcement that a peloton of international cycling stars will sweep into Sheffield in 2027. We also have a new column from our Birder in the Secret Valley, and more on last week’s burning moorland questions.
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Some might say the big Outdoor City news this week is the announcement the Tour de France Femmes will arrive in Sheffield on 31st July 2027. (We have more on all that athletic excitement for the city below).
But we think another announcement is just as interesting: the vast carbon store on our western hills has just nailed £25 million to keep that carbon in the ground and bring life back to our moorland. And it’s all from private businesses who’ve seen the light, in stark contrast to the aristocrats and wealthy gunmen who like to burn our landscape instead. But first: La Tour is coming!
La Tour
“Can I get a woo?” asked Lord Mayor Safiya Saeed at the media launch of the 18 month preparation for the Tour de France Femmes sweeping into Sheffield in two summers’ time.
“Woo!” we all said, frankly surprised by the enormity of “a special announcement for our cycling community” kept top secret by Sheffield council until the Tour machine confirmed where the two 2027 Tours de France et Grand Bretagne would be going.
Back in the winter of 2013, it seemed the city needed some convincing about the merits of a French cycling race arriving in Sheffield 18 months later. But when the peloton finally arrived, tens of thousands of us packed the city’s hillsides, and participant Geraint Thomas said riding through the Yorkshire enthusiasm was like being in a disco for four hours. We still have the Côte d’Oughtibridge and Côte de Wincobank Hill signs at Jawbone Hill and Jenkin Road to remember it all.
On July 31st, 2027, Sheffield hosts the Stage 2 finale for the Tour de France Femmes, who’ll have set off from Manchester that morning, traversed the Snake Pass, and climbed up and down as yet unknown Peak District hills en route to Sheffield.
The stage finish is likely to be at the Olympic Legacy Park, but tantalisingly from the opposite direction to last time, say organisers - so in 2027 the leading riders might sprint through Sheffield’s shiny new city centre towards the finish line, rather than showcase its greyer post-industrial outskirts as they did in 2014.
(A few weeks earlier, the blokes will set off from Edinburgh - the first time both Grand Departs have taken place in the same non-Gallic country).
The full official routes won’t be known for some months, but everyone involved hopes the world’s top female road cyclists racing to a stage finish will lead to a cycling and activity boom for Sheffield, as well as selling a lot of hotel rooms.
At a time when equality in elite sport really matters, Ed Clancy OBE (Olympian and South Yorkshire Active Lives Commissioner) said the platform, visibility and coverage for women is finally catching up with the men, thanks partly to the work of recent pioneers in women’s cycling, like Lizzie Deignan and Dame Laura Kenny.
But La Tour is a chance to transcend sport, and simply encourage more women and girls to take up everyday cycling, he said.
”With a much stronger focus on social impact around the Tour, the real opportunity is to connect this moment to safer neighbourhoods, better routes and the brilliant community projects already happening locally, and turn inspiration into lasting change across South Yorkshire.”
Late last year, the unspectacular announcement that South Yorkshire had risen to the top capability ranking for the government’s Active Travel England department led to a sigh of relief from the county’s transport boffins.
It meant their political and organisational machinations behind the scenes has given the government the confidence to give South Yorkshire more money to build stuff to help us walk, wheel and cycle more. And they will, I’m told. (How much will actually be built by July 2027 is another question).
The Tour in 2014 inspired so many people to get out on bikes, said Ed Clancy. “Now it’s about making sure the Women’s Tour inspires women and girls in the same way.“
Angela Walker is an inspiration in herself. Running the city’s CycleBoost bike loan scheme from the A Different Gear community bike shop in Heeley, she describes herself as a cycling adventurer rather than racer these days, after completing events like the 750 mile Paris-Brest-Paris race in 2015, and becoming half of the first female pair to finish the 2,500 miles Transcontinental race across Europe in her late forties.
“In the world of sport, we often use the phrase ‘You can’t be what you can’t see’” she says. “And if watching those world-class women cycle past means one young girl or woman thinks, blimey, look at all those women, I could have a go at that, then that’s got to be a good thing, hasn’t it?”
Leeds will probably get the media’s attention as the Grand Depart location for the 2027 Tour de France Femmes, but Angela reckons Sheffield gets the better deal.
“Leeds has the start, but people want to come to the finish, don’t they? They want to see who’s going to win the race. And that’s going to happen in Sheffield,” she says.
“Some of those people watching will say I’ve never been on a bike, and I’d like to have a go and then maybe they’ll realise how much fun it is,” she enthuses.
“And that’s important. Once you’ve got a bike, you just get on it and pedal and it can take you to work, it can take you to school, but it also can take you around the world, if that’s what you want.” Woo!
Bog Business
Sheffield sits on the edge of a wild boggy landscape that in many ways sums up the climate and nature emergencies. The Industrial Revolution began on the western edge of the Pennine moors, and now the ability of those moors to soak up and store carbon is being nurtured as an example of how nature can help us in the years to come. This week, the guardians of that landscape announced a huge boost in their funding, not from some government agency, but from private companies.
For some of the nation’s businesses, the penny has finally dropped, I’m told. (To be precise, two and a half billion pennies). They’ve realised that spending on nature and climate pays dividends.
“Thanks to natural capital investment of up to £25 million from a collective of private finance partners, the Peak District and South Pennine moors will benefit significantly from a five-year peatland restoration plan,” said the Moors for the Future Partnership in their announcement last week.
They’re being modest. We’ve covered their spectacular work before: after 20 years of badgering various public and private agencies, including local water companies and the European Union, MFFP have transformed Kinder Scout, and began the process of restoring the kind of wild natural landscape that existed on the Peak District and South Pennine moors before our predecessors blasted them to near lifelessness with the Industrial Revolution and industrial scale sheep grazing.
Over 250 square kilometres of blanket bog have been restored over the last 23 years, including 35 square km of bare lifeless peat brought back to life. After Brexit, outsiders worried how this restoration could continue.
But MFFP were already working with staff from water companies before we left the EU and its colossal funding schemes. These were business folk watching their accounts, who could also see that rewilding the moors that fed their reservoirs would clean up their water, and reduce flood risk, as well as doing quite a bit for biodiversity.
“It’s that question of the multiple benefits,” MFFP told me. “They’ve realised that by doing this, there were so many good things that could come out of it.”
Up to now, MFFP have spent around £50m on their work alongside agencies and landowners like the National Trust, RSPB and the Peak District National Park, as well as local water companies Severn Trent, United Utilities and Yorkshire Water.
So the new £25m, largely sourced from those water companies, is an acceleration in the restoration programme, which will see even more sphagnum moss planting, blanket bog restoration, gully blocking and lots of little dams built across new stretches of moorland over the next five years.
It’s likely some of this will be in the Derwent Valley, and possibly areas around Bleaklow - surveying and negotiations with landowners are already taking place.
Peat landscapes across the UK store around 20 years’ worth of the whole country’s CO2 output, so keeping that peat in the ground, and restoring the landscape so even more CO2 is captured in future years is pretty important to all of us, as well as the bats and birds and insects and mosses that are returning to the wild moors.
Government money is generally stretched and thin, I heard from the conservationists. “And that’s why we’ve been searching for other ways to fund this.”
Here on our doorstep, the greening landscape above the city shows how all those nice ideas about protecting nature really do help the climate crisis, and how forward- thinking businesses can see the value in contributing. (Public funding in the next batch of moorland restoration is notable by its absence.)
The new five year project, called Moor Resilience 2030, “is demonstrating what is possible when nature is recognised as vital national infrastructure,” said Matt Scott-Campbell, Partnership Manager at MFFP.
But there are still burning questions, as the residents of north west Sheffield know all too well. (Update below).
Burning Questions
Following last week’s story about how some old school aristocratic businesses see moorland rather differently to the rest of us, we heard back from reader David Anderson that Natural England seem satisfied the grouse moor burners of land above Agden had followed their management plan when sending their smoke into Bradfield earlier this month.
South Yorkshire Combined Authority also got back to us about whether the upcoming South Yorkshire Nature Recovery Plan will cover areas like the shallow peat some grouse moor owners still like to set on fire.
“We are currently working with partners to develop the priorities and measures for intervention to support nature recovery in South Yorkshire. This covers all habitat types, including ‘blanket bog’ which varies in depth,” they said. Their public consultation process will begin in a few months, they added.
I’ve asked the council what their air quality team can tell us about the smoke the owners of Bradfield Moor sent into Sheffield on January 5th, and I’ll let you know when I hear back.
But David Anderson is not impressed by the status quo apparently accepted by Natural England. “It sounds like the owners of Bradfield Moor claim their burning is legal as the peat is less than 30cm deep,” he says. “It’s time for a total ban.”
I Found That Something
Birder in the Secret Valley - by Meghan Tipping
Happy New Year everyone. It’s been a while since my last feature, and a lot has happened in between. From writing my first Beginner Birder piece for Sunday at Bill’s Mother’s, I have met so many knowledgeable, interesting and kind people who have shared their passion for birding.
I have realised that watching birds has had a profound impact on my connection to nature and my mental health. I lost my beloved dog in late September and because of the patience and kindness of others, I have felt comfortable going out into new spaces, to take some time to still my mind and simply look for birds.
Everybody needs something to help in this way, and it can take time to find that something.
You may have to wait for a chance encounter like I did. I met Kevin Bower whilst he was bird ringing at Shire Brook Valley Nature Reserve, and I was instantly intrigued by the process. Was this something I could take part in to remain connected with the site after the project and my role here comes to an end?
Kevin gave me the opportunity to become a trainee bird ringer. I obtained my T permit from the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) and joined the Sorby Breck Ringing Group.
Kevin has been ringing in the South East of Sheffield for over 20 years. Under his guidance and supervision, I have been learning to handle, identify, age, and record wild birds, working towards a C permit for scientific study. This process requires significant commitment, regular fieldwork, and patience over several years.
Bird ringing is the harmless process of catching birds in a fine-mesh net (known as a mist-net) and then safely extracting them to gather crucial conservation data.
The first bird I held in the ringer’s grip was a female Blackcap at Shire Brook Valley. The ringer’s grip is a specific and safe way you are taught to handle birds so you can attach a uniquely numbered, lightweight metal ring to their leg, and record data such as species, age, sex, and measurements before release.
The process is efficient, and the birds are soon released back into the wild leaving us with important conservation data. The BTO ringing scheme is one of the world’s longest-running ecological surveys, and has existed for over a hundred years.
Since beginning my journey, I have come to appreciate how incredible the bird life is in Britain. Birding has helped my mental health because it has provided a positive distraction.
To begin with, it got me outside more often, and then it has given me a purpose. Understanding more about birds and nature has offered me a new way to access the outdoors, and it keeps me wanting to come back to see and learn more. And the early mornings, where you get to experience such breath-taking sunrises, are something I still can’t put into words.
So far, seeing a male Bullfinch up close whilst ringing was a special moment, as I had previously only caught glimpses of this elusive bird.
Britain’s smallest bird, the Goldcrest, was an equally captivating encounter. Over the next few years, I will learn to handle a range of species before becoming fully trained.
I am incredibly grateful that I found my something.
On 31st January, we are hosting an event where you can find out about the wonderful bird life to be discovered across Shire Brook Valley. (Perhaps this might be the place someone else finds their something). See: Community Bird Event – Shire Brook Valley Nature Reserve . And for more on bird ringing:
More What’s On Out There (from Sunday 18th January)
A tiny selection from our new (and regularly updated) What’s On Out There news and listings post for January. (Full post is for full members, preview for all).
Sun 18th - Identifying Trees in winter - Graves Park
Mon 19th - Amazing World of Plants talk by Gerry Firkins with Wadsley Commoners (£4)
Tues 20th - Urban Nights gritty running events - 7 Hills of Sheffield
Weds 21st - Shire Brook Valley - Volunteer Session
Thurs 22nd - SRWT Volunteering - Sunnybank
Fri 23rd - Sun 25th - RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch
Sat 24th - CycleBoost cycle confidence & Learn to Ride cycle training at Greenhill
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It’s great that women’s cycling is now being recognised as a real sport. I hope the name of Beryl Burton (born in Leeds in 1937) becomes better known as a result - she often beat the men at their own game but is still rarely talked about. She achieved all sorts of records despite living with a heart condition, but sadly this took her life when she was only 58.
The arrival of both Tours to our part of the world is very exciting!
May I introduce fellow cycling/nature lovers to Morgan Phillips' La Flamme Verte substack for what I reckon will be a fascinating read on the overlap between the two topics?
https://open.substack.com/pub/morganhphillips/p/coming-soon-la-flamme-verte