£1.1m Dyfi Osprey Project gets the green light from Powys Council

The CorsDyfi Reserve, home to the Dyfi Osprey Project, has received approval from Powys County Council to carry out plans for a brand-new visitor centre. The £1.1m project has received half of its funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund and building will commence later in 2019, with the centre anticipated to open in Spring 2020.

The approval of the plans will enable the Dyfi Osprey Project to create the Dyfi Wildlife Centre, an exciting and immersive new visitor experience that houses a café, seating area, osprey-viewing screens, shop and volunteer facilities. The Centre will also become the first carbon-positive building of its kind in Wales. The Wildlife Centre will be able to be open for more months of the year and it’s expected that it will draw up to 60,000 visitors per annum.

Emyr Evans, Dyfi Projects Manager, commented:

‘This project allows us to build a great new visitor centre in mid Wales that will give adults and children alike an amazing experience of the ospreys, wildlife and the rich heritage of the Dyfi River. The Dyfi Wildlife Centre will complement the 360 Observatory we built on the reserve in 2014, again, part-funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.’

The Osprey Centre’s previous projects, including the award-winning 360˚ Observatory and the addition of 530 metres of slip-resistant Millboard decking, have already helped to make the reserve one of the best recorded and monitored in the UK. The new Centre will complement those earlier elements to create a world-class osprey conservation facility.

The Dyfi Osprey Centre opened in 2009 and has featured regularly on BBC’s Springwatch, gaining a strong following for the reserve, and for the individual birds. Mr Evans reported that this new development will provide the ‘best experience possible’ for the visitor, and that the Dyfi Osprey Project staff and volunteers are excited to begin turning this ten year ‘dream into reality’.