The National Trust is looking for a farmer with a passion for nature, people, and a lot of sheep to rent Parc Farm in Llandudno, North Wales that the charity acquired last year.

National Trust stepped in last May to “protect the rare and fragile landscape of the Great Orme,” limestone grasslands which were put up for sale with the potential to develop them into a golf course, and now wants to help a dedicated sheep farmer start out in farming, offering a ten year farm business tenancy on the property for just £1 per year.

Parc Farm at the Orme’s summit comes with the grazing rights for the majority of the headland, which is home to rare habitats and species of plant and insect; some of which exist nowhere else on earth.

The prospective farmer must have a passion for nature, as the charity specifically wants the farm to adhere to its ‘ten year vision’ which aims to reverse the current decline in wildlife. The Trust envisions the farm contributing towards finding long-term solutions to help nurse the countryside back to health. Announcing its offer, the Trust stipulated that “The needs of this coastal headland require a nature-first approach which may go against the grain of some modern farming methods.”

Explaining the decision to virtually do away with rent on the farm, National Trust general manager William Greenwood said the prospective tenant will need to put in long hours and deal with challenging weather to meet the Trusts' farming expectations. He said, “Unless we implement a very specific grazing regime we will not see these most fragile habitats recover. Put simply, to ensure a healthy and beautiful landscape we need the most agriculturally productive pastureland to be grazed less, and the least agriculturally productive grassland to be grazed more.”

This unconventional farming method of regularly moving sheep means long hours shepherding on often difficult terrain, while also working around the 600,000 visitors to the Great Orme each year. The Trust said it hopes to build on work already underway at its Llyndy Isaf farm in Snowdonia, which is run in conjunction with Young Farmers.

Greenwood added, “It hasn’t been grazed sustainably for at least ten years… so it’s really now or never for these butterflies, these plants [that exist on the Great Orme]. It is a unique site, it’s a unique problem. We’ve come up with a unique solution and… there’s a unique person out there who’s going to fit the bill.”

Conservation charity Plantlife has even pledged to buy the new tenant the flock of sheep needed to graze the landscape.