The Trust was set up in 1988 to save former railway sidings in Lewes from development and to establish the area as a nature reserve. The site was declared a Local Nature Reserve in 1995, has the first Junior Management Board in the country and is a Man and Biosphere designated site. In 2004, the Trust signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the owners of the reserve, Lewes District Council, to facilitate smoother running and more control of the direction and development of the site.

John Parry is a man of many parts - educationalist, university lecturer, writer, and a passionate campaigner on environmental issues and sustainable development.

He is currently leading a five-year cross-Channel environmental project working with adults with learning disabilities; contributed to the South Downs National Park Sustainable Recreation Topic Group on education strategy and chaired the south east region adjudication panel of the first Children’s Parliament on the Environment.

Over the years he has been associated with many high profile projects, but here in Lewes he is known particularly for his work with Lewes Railway Land, being at the forefront of the campaign to save the former railway sidings and to establish the area as a Local Nature Reserve. He was a founder trustee when the Railway Land Wildlife Trust was set up in 1988 and is now its chairman.

He admits to having reservations when Chris Drury first put his ideas for a reed bed to the committee. "We were pretty horrified at the scale and symmetrical nature of it," he explains "But there were very good reasons for wanting to limit the area and for encouraging a much more holistic and freer form. And," he adds, "Chris was a good listener."

Chris, he says, proved to be patient, quietly describing the design and his thinking behind it to a series of small and large audiences.

Right from the start, the committee was anxious to secure the support of the town and insisted that the design phase and exhibition should be separated from any physical works on site.

John Parry admits that sometimes the leap from a line drawn on paper to one on the ground, with a digger ready to roar into action, was stressful. They were fortunate, he says, to have a great team in the form of James Newmarch, the county council’s landscape manager; Dan Ross, the district council's community ranger and Bill, the foreman who, as a keen birdwatcher, was sensitive to the subtleties of what was needed at times. This, together with a strong management committee, made all the difference and they were able to establish a degree of trust, flexibility and mutual respect.

Heart of Reeds, he says, will add another distinct but accessible habitat to a mosaic that already includes former railway sidings and allotments, water meadows, a former Victorian garden, willow and alder carr. The site will attract new species, including warblers from Africa and, the ditches will soon be rich in water creatures and amphibians.

Of the future, he says they are now in the process of building up a series of large images that show the site from Chapel Hill in 1790, 1840, 1880 and the coming of the railways; the late 1980s and the campaign for a Local Nature Reserve, and now 2005 with Nick Sinclair's wonderful photographs of Heart of Reeds.

These images will provide a narrative not only of the site itself, but of local people's attitude to this place through history, he says.