On 30 October, the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) announced grants totalling £21m to conserve nine distinctive landscapes. This investment will ensure a boost for rural areas and provide long-term social, economic and environmental benefits.
The landscapes are:
• Coigach and Assynt, a beautiful and remote part of North West Scotland
• The New Forest, extensive ancient woodland and heathland with a strong surrounding community
• Humberhead Levels spanning Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, a rare internationally important wetland landscape characterised by significant remains of medieval strip farming and famous for its peatlands
• Ingleborough Dales, a limestone landscape in the Craven district of the Yorkshire Dales National Park
• North York Moors, home of the pioneering ironstone industry and the early development of railways
• Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland, the largest fresh water lake in the British Isles
• Rusland Valley and Fells, in the South Lake District National Park with a strong link to the traditional coppicing industry
• Derwent Valley, a coalfield area in North East England left behind by deindustrialisation which aims to harness the potential of its heritage for positive change and tourism
• East Wight, the eastern tip of the Isle of Wight and an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
HLF’s Landscape Partnership (LP) programme*, which has been running since 2004 is the most significant grant scheme available for landscape-scale projects, and builds on the HLF’s previous landscape-scale programme of Area Schemes. To date, over £160m has been invested in 91 different areas across the UK helping forge new partnerships between public and community bodies and ensuring people are better equipped to understand and tackle the needs of their local landscapes.
Professor Sir John Lawton CBE FRS, eminent British ecologist and author of Making Space for Nature: A Review of England’s Wildlife Sites and Ecological Network, commented:
“As a passionate advocate of landscape-scale conservation through habitat recreation and restoration, I am delighted to see HLF’s continuing, visionary support for nine more Landscape Partnerships throughout the UK, for the benefits of people, landscapes and wildlife. And as an adopted Yorkshireman, I cannot help noticing, with considerable pride, that three of them are in the iconic landscapes of God’s own county!”
Head of Landscape and Natural Heritage at HLF, Drew Bennellick, said:
“HLF’s landscape-scale funding has helped forge strong local partnerships which have secured the future of some of our most threatened landscapes.
“The nine schemes we are supporting this year have all demonstrated a need for urgent conservation work to the natural and built heritage as well as reconnecting communities to these places. They are important on many levels, including being an integral part of our health and well-being and a significant contributor to the tourist economy.
“The UK’s amazing countryside is under ever-increasing pressure and we must act now to make sure it continues to be one of our greatest assets.”
The successful LP schemes are as follows:
Scottish Wildlife Trust: Coigach and Assynt LP (Scotland)
HLF grant of £3m, including £100,000 development funding
Coigach and Assynt is a dramatic, rugged landscape in the far north-west of Scotland. One of the remotest places in Europe, it is home to a small, close-knit community which gives it a strong sense of identity. The project, part of a wider 40-year vision, has been developed by a grassroots partnership led by the Scottish Wildlife Trust. It will restore parts of the landscape, including pathways, blanket bog and heath moor. It will also engage local people and visitors through a comprehensive volunteering programme and a cultural learning programme which will increase understanding of this vast area’s complex heritage.
New Forest National Park Authority: New Forest LP (Hampshire)
HLF grant of £2.9m, including £161,000 development funding
The New Forest comprises extensive areas of woodland, wetlands and heath which are closely connected to the surrounding villages, small-holdings and farms. These links, formed over thousands of years thanks to a unique system of land management based on ‘commoning’ rights, are at risk of being weakened by 21st-century pressures. The New Forest National Park Authority and its partners are taking decisive action to restore and protect this beautiful part of South East England, not only through practical measures but also by developing a shared understanding and enthusiasm between ‘commoners’, landowners, the wider community and visitors to the New Forest.
North Lincolnshire Council: Humberhead Levels LP (Lincolnshire and Yorkshire)
HLF grant of £1.9m, including £77,500 development funding
The Levels include parts of North Lincolnshire, East and South Yorkshire. Set within a low-lying engineered and drained landscape (often referred to as ‘English polders’), the partnership area includes both the UK’s largest lowlands raised peat bog complex and its most extensive landscape survival. The scheme is also within a Nature Improvement Area. Rare birds, including breeding cranes and nightjars, thrive on the moors but the bogs are at risk of drying out and the medieval landscape is being lost. Running alongside conservation work will be opportunities for local people to take part in archaeological surveying, traditional ploughing, land stewardship skills and training.
Isle of Wight Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty: East Wight LP (Isle of Wight)
HLF grant of £1.5m, including £103,000 development funding
The Down to the Coast – East Wight Landscape Partnership programme focuses on the uniquely intricate and diverse landscapes formed by the rivers draining the eastern tip of the Isle of Wight (the East Wight). The East Wight is among the UK’s richest areas for wildlife with a complex geology underpinning the incredibly varied landscapes. Through the Down to the Coast programme, local people will have an opportunity to work together with conservation organisations to help manage these landscapes in a conservation-led scheme with an emphasis on training and community participation that will leave a lasting legacy for the East Wight landscapes and the people who enjoy them.
Lough Neagh Partnership Ltd: Lough Neagh LP (Northern Ireland)
HLF grant of £2.58m, including £84,200 development funding
Lough Neagh is bounded by five counties and is the largest freshwater lake in the UK and Ireland. It is a distinct landscape made up of wetland habitat and is home to a wide variety of plant and animal life – it even has its own species of trout, freshwater herring and the Lough Neagh Fly. The new Landscape Partnership scheme will bring the local lough-shore communities and public bodies together to identify and tackle the needs of this unique landscape in a co-ordinated and practical way. It will include lots of projects to conserve and manage the heritage of the area, and planned activities include the development of a heritage trail along the entire shoreline, archaeological digs and workshops and wetland and peat land conservation.
Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust: Ingleborough Dales (Yorkshire)
HLF grant of £2.1m, including £99,100 development funding
Covering 128 km² of distinct limestone landscape the Craven district of the Yorkshire Dales, known as the ‘land of the crags’, features Great Scar limestone shaped by run off from the Three Peaks into the Ribblesdale Valley and provides some of the best examples of limestone scenery in the UK. With the Settle to Carlisle Railway slicing through the landscape atop the Ribblehead Viaduct, the partnership area supports species rich grassland and the remains of raised peat bog, and is rich in limestone caves (many with SSSI status and of European significance), rivers, waterfalls, limestone pavement, and evidence of quarrying past and present. Alongside restoration and conservation works, the project also features traineeships for people seeking careers in traditional building skills, and opportunities for volunteers surveying and recording natural and domestic elements of the landscape. The project is led by Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust.
Lake District National Park Authority: Rusland Valley and Fells (South Lake District)
HLF grant of £1.3m, including £68,500 development funding
The 89sqkm area of low fells covered in broadleaved woodland is one of the most densely wooded areas in England and is in contrast to the steep-sided fells of the northern and central Lake District. Much of this ancient woodland was coppiced to serve various woodland industries such as iron smelting, gunpowder manufacture and bobbin making.
Drawing on traditional woodland skills, but also involving other countryside crafts, the project will cover the High Furness Fells between Coniston Water and Lake Windermere, from Grizedale southwards.
The project aims to provide rural training, employment and create exciting opportunities for residents and visitors in woodland management, wildlife and archaeology.
Groundwork North East: Derwent Valley (North East England)
HLF grant of £2.4m, including £155,800 development funding
The Derwent Valley, which stretches from Northumberland in the west to Consett in County Durham and passes through Gateshead on its route to the Tyne pioneered steelmaking and rail transport. Ancient woodland, important grasslands and ecologically valuable wetlands can still be found in abundance.
The scheme plans to protect many of the unique natural assets of the area, and revolutionise how people think about the Derwent Valley. Alongside it’s industrial past, the human stories of the area will be told in new and exciting ways, with education playing a major role. From the ‘pitman poet’ Tommy Armstrong, via the clog and rapper sword dancing of iron works families to the impressive estates of the areas landed elite, the Derwent Valley has a unique history that is not widely known.
North York Moors National Park Authority: North York Moors (Yorkshire)
HLF grant of £3m, including £198,000 development funding
Entitled ‘This Exploited Land – the trailblazing story of ironstone and railways in the North York Moors’, this project covers an area 200km² and will explore the impact of sudden industrialisation on the landscape of these remote valleys while conserving, protecting and recording the fragile remains of the revolutionary age. The project aims to restore key industrial heritage features of the area including the 19th century ironworks at Grosmont, which will be conserved and restored, in addition to others including Beck Hole, Esk Valley, Warren Moor and Rosedale mines. To be linked together with a new waymarked route called ‘The Ironstone Way’ the project will also restore Ancient Woodland Sites, improve management of Fen Bog, and include learning activities for local North East communities of all ages as well as an apprenticeship programme in local traditional building skills. The project is led by the North York Moors National Park Authority.
HLF’s Landscape Partnerships
These are helping bring together members of the community as well as local, regional, and national organisations to deliver schemes which benefit some of the UK’s most outstanding landscapes and rural communities. Grants range from £100,000 to £3m. The next closing date for LP applications is May 2014 for decisions in October 2014.