SELBORNE village hall will host the fifth National Trust Friends of Selborne Common annual lecture next month.

This year, Peter Thompson (pictured) of the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust will speak on Working Together for a Better Countryside Around Selborne on Saturday, November 12, at 7.30pm.

Mr Thompson has helped with the development of the Selborne Landscape Partnership, a farmer-led cluster formed 18 months ago and involving 18 land managers around Selborne.

Such clusters encourage landowners and managers to work together on a landscape scale rather than as individuals on separate holdings.

Following a recent visit, the former Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Liz Truss, described the Selborne farmer cluster as “a great example of responsible landowners thinking beyond their own fields, meadows and woodlands, looking at the wider landscape to deliver greater environmental benefits on a larger scale".

She went on to say that what the partnership was doing in Selborne was what she would like to become “business as usual” for farmers across the country.

The land managers include 18 farmers, The National Trust (Selborne Common and Long Lythe), Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust (Noar Hill National Nature Reserve), the Gilbert White Museum, and the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group.

The Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust and South Downs National Park Authority support the project.

Mr Thompson gives advice to farmers and land managers across England on practical methods of implementing conservation programmes developed by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust’s farmland ecology unit. He is a qualified agronomist who spent 10 years advising farmers before joining the Trust in 1988. He is also Hampshire co-ordinator for the Campaign for the Farmed Environment.

Tickets for the talk, priced £8 or £7.50 for Friends of Selborne Common, are available from Selborne Stores and Post Office, or from [email protected] or [email protected]. They are also available on the night priced £10.