Heritage Lottery Fund announces £18.3m to protect some of the UK’s best-loved views
The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has announced 11 earmarked first-round passes totalling £18.3m made through its Landscape Partnership (LP) programme.
This investment will enable the conservation of some of the UK’s most distinctive landscapes by supporting schemes that provide long-term social, economic and environmental benefits for rural areas.
The schemes involve a number of different landscapes including ancient woodland, reedbeds, marshes, dunes and former industrial land. Alongside conservation work, there will be a wide range of training opportunities on offer such as apprenticeships for disadvantaged young people, courses on hedgelaying and drystone walling and traditional dance and music sessions.
The landscapes receiving HLF support, including the first located in an urban area, are:
- The Island of Lindisfarne – spectacular coastline in North Northumberland known as ‘The Cradle of Christianity’;
- Morecambe Bay – the largest inter-tidal area in the UK, straddling Lancashire and Cumbria, with four estuaries joining in a horseshoe-shaped Bay;
- The Glens of Antrim – nine spectacular glens on the Antrim Cost running down into the North Channel;
- Gower – an unspoilt, much-visited peninsula to the west of Swansea and one of the first ever designated Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB);
- The Wandle Valley – a green corridor in a dense urban area with the River Wandle flowing from Croydon through to Wandsworth and the River Thames;
- The Lomond Hills – a distinctive natural landmark of two volcanic sills with some of Scotland’s oldest examples of small-scale mining and limestone quarrying;
- The River Tay – a rift valley below Perth and the only place in Scotland where the rare bearded tit breeds;
- The South Dorset Ridgeway – a picturesque stretch of land between Dorchester and Weymouth dating from the Neolithic and Bronze Ages;
- Stiperstones and Corndon Hill – two upland ridges which bear witness to the Shropshire Hill’s long history of mining and quarrying;
- The Suffolk Heritage Coast – a narrow coastal strip stretching from Felixstowe to Kessingland with low-lying shingle beaches and estuaries;
- The Lower Derwent Valley – located along the River Derwent between Matlock and Derby, this part of Derbyshire allegedly inspired the nursery rhyme ‘Rock-a-bye Baby’.
Over the past seven years, HLF has helped protect spectacular scenery in 56 different parts of the UK. With this investment of £90m, key partnerships have been forged between public and community bodies enabling people to tackle the needs of their local landscapes in a co-ordinated and practical way. HLF’s latest support is also set to attract a further £8.1m of match funding from other external sources making a cumulative total of £26.4m for this round of decisions.
Dame Jenny Abramsky, Chair of HLF, said: “Landscapes speak to the heart, inspiring people in all sorts of ways: be it poetry-writing, architectural design or even just the pleasure of looking at a beautiful view. Sadly, they can often taken for granted which is why the Heritage Lottery Fund, as one of the UK’s biggest funders of the natural heritage, believes the way forward is to put local communities in the driving seat so they can take care of the places that are the backdrop to their daily lives.
Our Landscape Partnership programme has been a truly ground-breaking initiative, making a significant contribution to the way many organisations work together on landscape-scale conservation.”
Richard Benyon, Environment Minister, said: “These sites are among the best of British views. The Heritage Lottery Fund is helping encourage partnerships across the country to protect and improve some of our most cherished landscapes. This funding will allow people to come together and learn valuable skills which will benefit the environment around them, protecting wildlife and maintaining our cultural heritage for years to come.”
Read more about the project and the specific detail on the HLF website.