LOTTERY SUPPORT FOR EXMOOR’S MOORLAND

The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has offered Exmoor National Park Authority a £50,000 grant towards the planning of a major moorland project on Exmoor.  The planning and consultation will take place in 2006 and a bid for some  £1 million of funding will be submitted in 2007.

Moorland has been a major issue on Exmoor since the designation of the National Park in 1954.  It was therefore appropriate that during the 50th anniversary last year these landscapes were the focus of a major study, Moorlands at the Crossroads, commissioned by the Exmoor Society.  

The final report identified a series of actions to be taken forward to further moorland conservation. Some of these, such as monitoring public use after open access was legalised and the introduction of a flexible agri-environment scheme have already taken place.  But other initiatives, such as a ‘Moorkeeper’ scheme to provide locally based management of moorland areas or a Moorland Challenge Fund to encourage the restoration of moorland areas improved for agriculture since the 1950s, need significant additional funding.  To secure the necessary funding for these major schemes, the National Park Authority will develop an HLF Landscape Partnership project.

For the next year National Park Authority staff, assisted by consultants and volunteers, will be developing ideas with moorland owners and managers, a wide range of organisations, local people and visitors.  This process will identify a series of costed projects and champions to take them forward.  These will form the basis for the bid which will be submitted to HLF in March 2007.

David Lloyd, Team Leader (Moorland and Wildlife) at the National Park Authority, said: “We are most grateful to the Heritage Lottery Fund for this grant.  Without these extra resources we could not possibly pull together a complex bid such as this.  While there is still a long way to go, this is a significant step forward towards improving the management of Exmoor’s moorland and helping people enjoy these wonderful areas.”