Agenda item

Report tabled on the day.

Elliott Lorimer tabled a report regarding the Landscape Partnership Scheme providing some background and scope to the proposed scheme.

Elliott explained that at the April 2013 meeting of the Forest of Bowland AONB Joint Advisory Committee (JAC) the committee agreed that the AONB Unit should put the 2013 Fundraising Strategy into action, in order to seek external funding for the Partnership.

A key element of this strategy is to bid for large scale funds from the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Landscape Partnership Scheme (LPS).

The LPS is for schemes led by partnerships which aim to conserve areas of distinctive landscape character, aiming to create a holistic programme of work at a landscape-scale, over a five year period and with significant grant aid of up to £3m and up to a 90% intervention rate. Match funding does need to be committed (and ideally secured) in advance and this typically makes up 20-30% of total programme costs. This is going to be a challenge to generate in our current economic climate.

The application process is competitive, with normally just one application per region being successful each year. The process is also lengthy, taking on average 2-3 years from starting bidding to the start of a delivery phase.

LPS schemes have to deliver against HLF ‘outcomes’ and make a significant difference to the heritage (natural and cultural), communities and people in the project area. The outcomes are as follows:

Outcomes for heritage

Heritage will be:

·  Better managed

·  In better condition

·  Identified/recorded

Outcomes for people

People will have:

·  Developed skills

·  Learnt about heritage

·  Volunteered time

Outcomes for communities

·  Environmental impacts will be reduced

·  More people and a wider range of people will have engaged with heritage

·  Your local area/community will be a better place to live, work or visit.

In essence, LPS programmes seek to make significant improvement in a defined area.

One further issue is that this defined area should be a maximum of 200 sq kilometres, and in an AONB the size of Bowland (800 sq km) this means we have to select the most appropriate and distinctive area which:

·  has significant needs and issues

·  can demonstrate a level of improvement over 5 years

·  meets both HLF and AONB Partnership priorities

The AONB Unit originally identified 4 potential areas for a LPS bid, and this has now been reduced to 3, with two areas in the north of the AONB merging into one larger landscape unit. Over the summer a scoping study has taken place to assess the potential for each of these areas to make a bid to HLF. The results of this study are set out below and will be presented to the AONB JAC in October 2013 to make a decision on which area we will develop a bid for.

The AONB Unit would like to stress that all three areas hold massive potential for action, and the level of interest in pursuing a bid in all areas is high. We would therefore like to propose that the two areas NOT selected for a bid will become a focus for activity by the Partnership, and a number of pilot schemes and funded activity will be delivered there whilst HLF resources are focussed on the successful LPS scheme elsewhere in Bowland.

Next Steps

Once the JAC has decided which area should be developed as a Landscape Partnership Scheme the timetable could be as follows:

October 2013 to May 2014

A partnership board will be created to guide development of a stage 1 bid External advice will be brought in to assist with the bid preparation, although this will largely be done within the AONB Unit.

May 2014

Stage 1 bid to be submitted.

October 2014

HLF Board decision on phase 1 bid, if successful a Development Grant (up to £100,000) will be available to further develop the bid.

January – December 2015

Development stage, putting together a stage 2 bid, with support from a dedicated project officer.

Spring 2015

Submission of stage 2 bid with a decision later that year.

2016

Programme to start delivering.

The Committee considered the 'Three Candidate Areas', consisting of the 'Northern Arc', the 'Western Edge' and 'Pendle'.

After considering all the information presented in the report and additional information provided by officers, the Committee selected 'Pendle' as its preferred option.

Resolved: After consideration of all relevant information presented, the Committee resolved to select 'Pendle' as the area for the AONB Partnership to progress an LPS bid and instructed officers to commence the next steps in the project planning and development process.