Multi-million pound move to help protect unique heritage of Dales

The Clapham-based charity Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust (YDMT) has announced today that it is developing a bid to secure up to £2m in funding for the new five-year landscape and heritage conservation programme called the Craven Dales Landscape Partnership across the south west of the national park.

The programme aims to generate a range of landscape conservation initiatives which the charity claims would bring major benefits to the area, including environmental improvements to the Yorkshire Dales and a boost to its visitor economy.

The YDMT is now urging interested parties to contribute thoughts and ideas to develop its first stage bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund, before it is submitted at the end of next month.

Dave Tayler, deputy director at YDMT, which has around 35,000 supporters, said, “Essential to this exciting new project is having a strong involvement from local organisations, communities and individuals. We’re looking for people to help us identify and deliver the projects that will make a real difference to the area.

“This involvement from individuals and our partner organisations will be invaluable in ensuring that this project brings the maximum benefit to the Dales – people and place.”

The areas to be covered under the project are Ribblesdale, Ribblehead, Chapel-le-Dale, Kingsdale, Clapdale, Ingleborough and Crummack Dale.

The YDMT says it will be focusing on habitat and landscape improvement and conservation, developing new community and visitor facilities such as car parking, signage, viewing points and picnic sites, surveying and recording the industrial heritage of the Yorkshire Dales as well as promoting its cultural heritage.

If the first stage bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) Landscape Partnership scheme is successful, the detail of the programme would be developed and submitted later this year by YDMT with input from partner organisations and individuals.

To date, the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust has helped to deliver more than 1,200 projects worth around £20m in the Yorkshire Dales and surrounding areas.

The Craven Dales Landscape Partnership project is planned to run from 2013-18.

The scheme is one of a number of multi-million pound bids currently in the pipeline to bolster visitor numbers in both the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors.

The Yorkshire Post revealed last month that the North York Moors National Park Authority has joined forces with North Yorkshire County Council to finalise a bid to boost transport links and open up some of the most remote parts of the national park to the lucrative tourism trade.

The proposals, centred on the Esk Valley in the North York Moors National Park, are aimed at providing a more sustainable transport network and include plans for improved bus services and a park-and-ride facility in Whitby and are due to be submitted to the Government before February 24.

The strategy is heavily themed around preserving the environment, and an electric bike hire scheme is also due to be launched if funding is secured.

Meanwhile, the biggest transport revolution in the Yorkshire Dales in living memory went live in October when work began on providing local transport hubs, monitored by a central IT scheduling system.

The Dales Integrated Transport Alliance (DITA) scooped £1.1m in July when £155.5m was awarded to 39 proposals nationally under the first tranche of funding under the Local Sustainable Transport Fund.

YDMT will be holding an informal public event at Clapham Village Hall on Wednesday, January 11 from 2pm to 7pm to involve the public in the project.