Director’s review of the year 2022

By Chris Woodley-Stewart, Director of the AONB Partnership

31 December 2022

The AONB team ends 2022 as a bigger group than we were last New Year, with an expanded portfoilio of projects and programmes. So what have we been up to, and how did we focus on our twin priorities of nature recovery and engaging people with natural and cultural heritage?

We’re long past a time when ‘conservation’ is enough – it feels like just trying to hold the line in storm of decline. But whatever we call it, the team has done some great work this year. Be it hedgerow creation, river-wiggling, woodland creation or grassland management through our Fellfoot Forward Landscape Partnership Scheme, joining up activity across multiple farm holdings, restoring hay meadows and enhancing wader habitat through our Tees-Swale programme, restoring peatlands expanding tree and scrub cover, or supporting natural flood management – we’ve tried to make a difference on the ground.

Our Peatland Programme (https://northpennines.org.uk/what_we_do/peatland-programme/) continues to grow and to do outstanding work. We continue to lead the Pennine PeatLIFE programme, in collaboration with Yorkshire Peat Partnership and Forest of Bowland AONB, and to deliver a peatland-focused INTERREG project, Carbon Connects. There has been a lot of work to develop private / blended finance opportunities for peatland restoration, with almost £2m secured this year from this source, alongside several million pounds from grant aid that we’ve been awarded. Our work with partners on this issue includes continued development of the Great North Bog (GNB). Staff are on the GNB Board and Chair / sit on the GNB Operations Group.

We’d like to see a doubling of woodland cover in the AONB and the ‘Heart of the Pennines Forest’ project is one of the ways we’re trying to make this happen. Through a Forestry Commission grant of £500,000 we are working in partnership with Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority and Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust, increasing our ability to capacity for woodland creation with farmers and land managers in the Cumbria and Durham parts of the AONB.

I’m especially proud of the large-scale ecological restoration work we’ve led at High Helbeck, near Brough, This was a strong partnership, working alongside RSPB, Natural England, the Woodland Trust and the supportive and far-sighted landowners. Together we restored 80ha of peatland, enabled tree and scrub establishment across nearly 160ha and created new habitat for wading birds, as well as providing new opportunities for public access. This partnership has now begun to work towards a much larger programme of landscape restoration along the escarpment west and north.

The historic environment is still an important focus of our work and in The Land of Lead and Silver we have a new project in a funded 18month development phase, looking to conserve and celebrate the area’s mining heritage. This time next year we’ll have submitted a stage 2 funding bid for £1.5 million to take forward this work. In Cumbria, we’ve completed the consolidation of Kirkoswald Castle, held community archaeology events and seen through some long-held ambitions to improve the management of Long Meg and Her Daughters (England’s second largest stone circle). I never thought I’d be excited about building a car park, but the one we’ve created near Long Meg is all about protecting the monument itself from vehicle damage. It’s a great place to visit over the Christmas and New Year period and imagine the lives of those who erected the stones.

Also on an historic environment theme, this year’s Pendlebury Award went to Altogether Archaeology.  The award, established in memory of the AONB Partnership’s first Chair, Cllr Bob Pendlebury, is given for outstanding contributions to conserving, or helping people to enjoy, the area’s natural and cultural heritage. The current ‘Altogether Archaeology’ group began in 2015, springing from an earlier, AONB-led, Community Archaeology Project. Rooted in the North Pennines community, it exists to further understanding of the region’s archaeological record and it has realised this aim by directly involving members in fieldwork and research. It provides multiple opportunities for members to extend their knowledge of archaeological methods and practice through highly structured research, fieldwork and training. Working with professional archaeologists and other partners to excavate a range of multi-period sites, these have been rapidly published via the group’s excellent web site. They have also developed a detailed archaeological research agenda for the North Pennines and this chimes well with, and develops, the regional archaeological strategy.

The AONB team is also improving public access in Teesdale, whilst we’ve worked with hundreds of primary and secondary school pupils, on work such as seed sowing, exploration of hay meadows and understanding the area’s different habitats. A year-long project has started with Yr 10 pupils from Teesdale Secondary School, learning about Teesdale hay meadows and their management. Meanwhile new interpretation projects in Teesdale are coming to fruition, including at Low Force. In the new year we’ll be doing lots of new access work, including creating an off-road mobility ‘tramper’ network.

The 6th North Pennines Stargazing Festival was held in October half-term. There were 27 events for a wide range of ages and levels of knowledge / experience. Stargazing has really taken off in the North Pennines – though we don’t have an international dark sky designation, this is still one of the best places in the country to experience the wonder of truly dark night skies.

The Farming in Protected Landscapes programme completed year 1 and moved into year 2 and has proved a great success, locally and nationally. We have over £2.7m to allocate in the North Pennines over three years. Work supported in 2022 is diverse, and includes hay meadow restoration, new hedgerows, drystone walls, watercourse restoration and protection, pond and scrape creation, heritage interpretation, providing permissive access, analysis of soil health and carbon storage, work towards Maximum Sustainable Output, support to aid regenerative grazing and equipment for in-house faecal egg count analysis to reduce use of anthelmintics in sheep. Quarterly reports are posted on the North Pennines AONB FiPL web pages listing the amounts allocated and basic details of all approved projects.

Our Bowlees Visitor Centre, car park and associated local wildlife site has been fully open again this year. Our gallery space has again been used to showcase the work of local artists and crafts people and also the work of the Partnership staff team which has proven popular with visitors. Our Wild Wednesdays, Discovery Club, Explorers and other events have continued. Bowlees received a 100% score in a Visit County Durham Mystery Shopper visit – by definition, we don’t know who you were, but thank you!

Our work as managers of the UNESCO Global Geopark designation for the AONB has involved creating new trails, work with school and community groups, community art activities and more. We’re currently focused on reaching new audiences for our geoheritage and this has included a series of visits and activities with a wellbeing focus, for primary school classes areas just outside the North Pennines, and also involved the children’s families. After a four-day assessment in the summer, the area’s UNESCO Global Geopark designation has been retained for a further four years. This is testament to the enormous amount of work done to interpret, celebrate and promote learning about the area’s world class geodiversity.

Through the NLHF-funded ‘A Landscape for Everyone’ project, the team has been exploring and breaking down barriers to engagement with different groups in society. The work to date has included development of relationships with selected groups and their members, to recruit, train and support ‘champions’ and to help co-design the project activities. We’ve initiated conversations with several different communities, bringing some of them out into the AONB to engage in activities that they had not previously felt able to enjoy. A research group is being developed to support the programme. We’re also working towards the North East Autism Society’s ‘Autism Acceptance Award. We are trying to learn valuable lessons which can be applied to project work, and our work and processes generally, in future. All of this matters – if we want to encourage everyone in society to care about nature, then everyone has to feel welcome and be represented. You can’t be what you can’t see, and people have to see themselves reflected in our landscapes if we want these special places to matter to the whole nation.

After all eight of last year’s trainees went on to jobs in the sector, we’ve recruited nine new ones who have been in post since early Summer. All have settled in well and are making a valuable contribution to the team, as well as gathering new skills, knowledge and experience. We remain committed to such traineeships being paid roles, so that not only those who have access to the ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’ can access them.

We have an important advocacy and communications role and we continued to play an active part in regional, national and international structures and partnerships, developing work which supports the purpose of designation, the North Pennines and the AONB/Geoparks networks as a whole.

Not everything works – we have our share of setbacks like any other organisation, but the team continues to do a huge amount of work, both directly and in partnership with others. AONB Teams are operating on effectively 36% less core finding than they were in 2011, yet the North Pennines team and others are clearly delivering more work than we did then – this may look like a good thing, but it is not sustainable. In the coming year, as a name change to National Landscapes is likely to come into being, Government has to make good on the promise of the Landscapes (Glover) Review, with new and enhanced purposes, powers and duties in relation to AONBs, and crucially with increased funding. There’s a lot of demand to do more with less, but we’re right out of sows’ ears from which to make silk purses.

Thanks to all the partners and communities we’ve worked with this year, and especially to the farmers and land-owners on whose land we work. Of our diverse range of funders, it would be wrong not to draw attention to the contribution of the National Lottery Heritage Fund (and Lottery players) for their support for our work and for nature and heritage across the country.

Here’s to a good year ahead in our ‘National Landscapes’.