A ROYAL duke has visited an East Lancashire nature reserve to highlight its success as one of the best sites in the UK for wildlife.

The Duke of Gloucester visited Brockholes, a ‘floating’ nature park just off junction 31 of the M6, which has been growing from strength to strength since it opened to the public last Spring.

The centre has welcomed 125,000 visitors since its opening in April and is hoping half a million people will explore the reserve by 2016.

To showcase its success, the Duke of Gloucester took a look around the site as part of a tour of the Preston Guild Wheel, a new 21 mile ‘greenway’ route around Preston.

The wheel has been created to celebrate the Preston Guild, which takes place every 20 years.

Anne Selby, chief executive of the Lancashire Wildlife Trust, said: “The whole day went amazingly well.

“The Duke is an architect so we had a feeling he would enjoy looking at what we had done.

“He was very intersted in the engineering and the building materials we used but he had a lot of questions about the wildlife too.”

The Duke was keen to quiz Brockholes’s architect Adam Khan on his design and even stopped off for an ice cream in the restaurant.

Alan Wright, communications officer at Lancashire Wildlife Trust, said Brockholes’ had contributed considerably to helping the organisation in the recession.

He said membership for the Wildlife Trust had risen by more than 2,000, about 10 per cent, to over 20,000 in the last year, which was largely down to the success of the reserve.

Michael Green, cabinet member for economic environment and planning at Lancashire County Council, said: “We are really pleased the Duke enjoyed himself - it was a chance to showcase the excellent things that are happening in the county.”

Brockholes is open to visitors from April to October, 10am-5pm, and November to March, 10am-4pm.