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.”

Lindisfarne LP, Northumberland - first-round pass of £1.98m, including £98,800 development funding
Initial HLF support will enable the Holy Island Development Trust to work with the local community to conserve Lindisfarne’s diverse heritage and learn more about its fascinating story. The area is home to a range of built and natural heritage with rare plants species including the delicate Lindisfarne helleborine and wildlife habitats for breeding birds and mammals such as the grey seal. 

Morecambe Bay LP, Cumbria and Lancashire - first-round pass of £2m, including £100,000 development funding
Morecambe Bay is famed for its vast inter-tidal sand and mudflats, spectacular views and outstanding diversity of wildlife. The Morecambe Bay Partnership’s vision for this landscape will promote the natural and cultural heritage of the Bay whilst also helping to address potential issues associated with climate change. A range of training opportunities, including archaeological fieldwork, oral history workshops, surveying, habitat management and restoration, guide training and sustainable farming, will be developed in order to give local people a greater sense of ownership and knowledge to maintain the area in the future.

Heart of the Glens LP, County Antrim - first-round pass of £1.5m, including £91,700 development funding
The Glens are a popular tourist destination due to the unique landscape with distinctive farmsteads known as Clachans and traditional field patterns. HLF’s initial support will enable the Causeway Coast & Glens Heritage Trust to encourage sustainable tourism alongside conserving and restoring natural and built features and offering local people a series of free and subsidised training places on subjects as diverse as fishing practices, hedgelaying and traditional dance and music. 

Saving Gower LP, Swansea - first-round pass of £1.3m, including £19,800 development funding
Gower is a beautiful but fragile landscape. Visited by thousands of people every year it provides an oasis of calm and escape from bustling city life in Swansea. HLF’s development funding will enable plans to be progressed to protect and enhance the area, including controlling invasive species and managing small woodlands and wet fields in partnership with local landowners. A programme of 12-week training courses will be available to disadvantaged young people with a number of accompanying apprenticeships also on offer. 

Living Wandle LP, London – first-round pass of £1.9m, including £78,000 development funding
This project, the first urban landscape that HLF has funded under its LP programme, focuses on the River Wandle which flows through four boroughs – Croydon, Sutton, Merton and Wandsworth - in South West London.  The area is in urgent need of conservation work with plans in place to return it to a healthy ecosystem.  Wandsworth Borough Council, acting as lead partner, also recognises the need to involve local communities in the scheme and will offer opportunities to explore the river and how it connects to the history of the area.

The Living Lomonds LP, Fife  – first-round pass of £1.8m, including £90,600 development funding
The Lomonds are one of the last largely untouched upland landscapes in East Scotland.  They are made up of natural heritage sites and habitats, including woodlands, moorland and species rich grasslands, plus a host of wildfowl and passerine birds and other species such as water vole, red squirrel, red grouse and green tiger beetles. Fife Coast and Countryside Trust is leading a partnership which will reflect the historical significance of the Lomonds as the water catchment area that enabled industrial development in the surrounding towns.

Tay LP, Perth – first-round pass of £1.5m, including £100,000 development funding
Perth & Kinross Countryside Trust and its partners are working on innovative plans to conserve and restore an internationally important but complex and threatened landscape. Key to these will be reconnecting people to their surrounding natural heritage. Tay LP, centred on the River Tay, is distinctive as the single largest area of reedbeds in the UK. Combined with extensive inter-tidal mudflats, subtidal sandbanks and saltmarshes, it makes up an important breeding site, particularly for the rare bearded tit, water rail (a highly secretive small bird) and marsh harrier. 

South Dorset Ridgeway LP – first-round pass of £1.9m, including £96,100 development funding
This five-year scheme focuses on three main landscape types: Ridge and Vale; Open Chalk Downland; and Chalk Escarpment.  Found between the county town of Dorchester and the Georgian resort town of Weymouth, it is one of the most diverse Neolithic and Bronze Age landscapes in Europe. Dorset AONB is developing extensive plans to protect this ancient ceremonial area, restore grassland, heathland, arable and woodland flora and fauna and provide learning and bespoke training opportunities in local heritage skills.

Stiperstones and Cordon Hill Country LP, Shropshire and Powys – first-round pass of £1.4m, including £93,800 development funding
HLF’s support will enable the Shropshire Hills AONB Partnership to work up plans for the conservation of Stiperstones and Cordon Hill Country, an upland area that crosses the Welsh-English border between the Shropshire Hills and Powys. The scheme reflects the area’s mining and quarrying heritage: less than century ago it was a thriving industrial community. Equally important is the surrounding habitat where curlew, snipe, lesser horseshoe bats, dormice and spreading bellflower all thrive. Local people will be encouraged to get involved and learn more about protecting the environment with a number of training opportunities, including a new apprenticeship scheme, on offer to them.

Suffolk Heritage Coast LP – first-round pass of £896,800, including development funding of £86,500 Suffolk Heritage Coast and Heaths AONB, a narrow strip of land running up the coast, is one of the fastest-eroding stretches of the coast in the UK. This three-year scheme aims to conserve and manage the area and also look at how the local coastal communities co-exist with their cultural and natural heritage, particularly as they have been subject to rapid and significant change. There will be a wide range of training opportunities with 200 volunteer coastal wardens learning how to protect archaeological sites and survey habitats such as vegetated shingle and salt marsh. The scheme will also tell the story of distinctive and much-loved buildings such as Orford Ness Lighthouse and the Martello Towers and how Dunwich town was ‘lost’.

Lower Derwent Valley LP, Derbyshire – first-round pass of £1.85m, including development funding of £87,100
Derbyshire Wildlife Trust is the lead partner on a five-year scheme which covers the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site, the Riber Hills and the Via Gellia and Bonsall limestone dales around Matlock. The Derwent Valley was the birthplace of the factory system which became the model for industry all over the world. The role the landscape played in this industrial development will be an important focus of the scheme. Other plans include uncovering the earlier Bronze Age, Roman and Medieval history hidden in the wooded slopes of the valley and celebrating the stories of local writer Alison Uttley. 

Notes to editors

• ¹ A Landscape Partnership (LP) earmarked first-round pass means that money has been set aside by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for the scheme in question. Competition at this stage is tough, and while it does not guarantee funding, it is an indication of positive support. The applicant then progresses to the second round and submits a further, fully-developed application to secure the full award. This early level of strong financial commitment means that LPs can build strong partnerships with the assurance that funding for their scheme is in place provided that their final proposals fully meet the programme's criteria.   

Further information 

Please contact Katie Owen or Laura Bates, HLF Press Office 020 7591 6036 / 6027  Mobile: 07973 613 820

Images available on request.