National park boss underlines importance of landscape recovery bid

North York Moors National Park Authority chief executive Tom Hind told a meeting of its finance committee he would be “absolutely gutted” if its £650,000 Linking Levisham bid to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) was not approved later this month.

The proposed landscape scale scheme would span some 2,588 hectares to allow natural processes and precious habitats to be restored and connected across boundaries.

Mr Hind was speaking as the meeting heard the authority had continued to exceed ambitious targets for external funding in the face of diminishing funding from Defra.

The meeting was told the authority had received an “encouraging” letter from Agriculture Minister Mark Spencer last week over its Farming in Protected Landscapes (FiPL) programme, but the freeze in the core grant from Defra highlighted that diversifying income sources was the only way to ensure the best outcomes for the national park.

The FiPL programme aims to create and improve protected landscapes across England by providing funding to support farmer-led projects such as improving public access, creating ponds, and reducing carbon emissions and plastic use on farms.

However, the committee’s members, which includes elected councillors and government appointees, heard the authority was optimistic about landing the landscape recovery grant partly because Defra wanted to distribute the funding money across England and the area was yet to receive any such financial support.

If approved, the grant would support a two-year development phase for Linking Levisham, which would deliver land management changes across theLevisham estate that benefit biodiversity, climate change and connecting large landscapes and those people working there.

The proposal involves work in partnership with the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, Forestry England and two common graziers and two grazing tenants, to combine all partners’ management plansinto one focussed 2,588 hectare initiative.

The project would see species and landscape scale audits, research andassessments and nature recovery conservation works, as well as exploration into possible nature credits.

National park bosses say Linking Levisham has enormous potential to restore degraded parts of the designated sites, to tackle threats, to expand habitats, and to improve connectivity so they can act as source sites for nature recovery.

Mr Hind said: “We’re keen to look at how protected landscapes can play a broader role in the delivery of environmental land management.

“I will be absolutely gutted if that doesn’t succeed. It’s absolutely in the slot in terms of what Natural England and Defra are looking for and the partnership we have been able to build working collaboratively with Forestry England and the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, the wildlife trust and the farmers, commoners and tenants, putting that together is phenomenal.”