The National Trust has hit its target to restore nature across more than 25,000 hectares of priority habitat in less than a decade – an area twice the size of Manchester.

The charity was aiming to create or restore habitats of importance for wildlife on this amount of land by 2025 in line with its wider conservation goals set in 2015.

But the organisation announced on Friday that it reached the milestone early after its countryside and ranger teams worked to restore hectares (ha) of peatlands, meadows, wetlands, woodlands and saltmarsh on land in its care.