Cash boost for landscape work (From Darlington and Stockton Times)
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Cash boost for landscape work
8:00am Monday 23rd July 2012 in News
By Andy Walker, Chief Reporter (Darlington)
FUNDING: The River Tees at Croft
PROJECTS aimed at enhancing some of the region’s most beautiful open spaces are to benefit from more than £5m of grants.
The Heritage Lottery Fund has chosen 13 schemes across the country to share handouts of £20m as part of its Landscape Partnership programme.
The fund says the investment will help to conserve some of the UK’s most diverse landscapes by supporting projects providing social, economic and environmental benefits for rural areas.
The projects to benefit in the North-East include the five-year River Tees Rediscovered partnership, which will receive £1.9m in the first round of funding.
The project covers 120sq km of the Tees Valley , starting at Piercebridge, near Darlington, and ending at Teesmouth.
Kate Culverhouse, managing director of Groundwork North-East, one of the scheme’s partner agencies, said: “The River Tees has had a powerful influence on the area’s industrial, physical, and cultural heritage as well as shaping its wildlife landscape.
“This funding is crucial to bringing back in to focus the river’s unique characteristics as well as celebrating its history and helping rekindle a sense of pride in the river, its history and surrounding communities.”
The scheme will include the launch of educational programmes, with residents encouraged to develop new skills, such as becoming conservation and wildlife project volunteers.
Other projects to benefit include the Allen Valleys Landscape Partnership, part of the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
The partnership will receive £1.8m for a project aimed at promoting the twin valleys, which are popular with coast to coast cyclists and distinctive for their peatlands, hay meadows and industrial heritage.
Upper Nidderdale Landscape Partnership, in North Yorkshire, will receive £1.2m for a project that includes training local people in heritage skills, practical courses for schools and apprenticeships for students.
Heritage Lottery Fund chairwoman Dame Jenny Abramsky said: “The partnerships are helping change the way people think about and care for some of the UK’s most spectacular scenery.”
