PART of a quarry is to become Northumberland Wildlife Trust’s 62nd nature reserve .

The trust has signed a partnership agreement with Tarmac over the Broadoak quarry sand and gravel extraction area near the River Derwent at the southern tip of Northumberland.

Extraction began at the site in the 1950s and the trust will be taking over a 53-acre restored area.

An adjacent area occupied by lagoons used in the processing of sand and gravel will also go to the trust in three years’ time.

Tarmac is still working the neighbouring 75-acre Hollings Hill area.

The restoration of this area is due by 2025 when it is also expected to come under the trust-Tarmac partnership.

As part of the restoration, the initial Broadoak land near Ebchester includes a south-facing “amphitheatre” lowland meadow area. There is also broadleaf woodland, ponds and wetland.

Tarmac has also installed 300 bird and bat boxes.

Great crested newts are being relocated from the working quarry area to ponds at Broadoak.

Mike Young, estate manager at Tarmac said: “We have a long term commitment to this partnership, with management being led by the trust.”

It is likely that a similar arrangement will be made over Tarmac’s Lanton and Woodbridge quarry sites near Wooler in Northumberland.

Mr Young said: “We can’t recycle away our need for aggregate. Until concrete is no longer required there will be that need.”

But he said that the biodiversity value of restored quarry areas was much higher than was the case on the original land.

Duncan Hutt, head of land management at Northumberland Wildlife Trust, said: “It is great to have another site and especially in that part of the county.”

The quarry site is also adjacent to Durham Wildlife Trust’s 200-acre Milkwellburn Wood, an ancient woodland site near Blackhall Mill where commercial conifers will eventually be replaced with broad leaf woodland.