THE Quantock Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) is in line for a £1.9 million national lottery grant to help protect its futurte.
It has just been awarded a £91,300 development grant which will lead to the full grant once its detailed plans are approved.
The Quantock Hills AONB team and partners are developing a scheme which aims to inspire local communities about centuries of landscape development on the Quantock Hills, and undertake 26 wide-ranging projects that will protect the area into the future.
The scheme is called Reimagining the Manor, after the manor estates that ringed the Quantocks Hills and played a part in the formation of how they are today.
The development grant funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Landscape Partnership programme will enable the scheme to be fully developed within the next two years, with the £1.9m full grant available from November 2019 once plans get final approval.
“We will use the funding to explore what is important to local people in the area and how to ensure that we keep those elements going into the future,” said Iain Porter, Quantock Hills AONB development officer.
“We have got Hinkley and huge areas of housing development in Bridgwater and Taunton which could change the character of the Quantock Hills.
“As Hinkley becomes bigger it will become a more industrial landscape and, as the housing encroaches on that buffer between the urban edge and the AONB, we will experience changes and the tranquil, rural nature will alter.
“We need to figure out what is important to people and how we can ensure the impact of these developments is lessened,” he said.
The AONB and its partners will now work on a Landscape Character Action Plan, a complex set of documents, evidence about landscape change assessments, surveys and research from the communities.
As part of this, 26 planned projects are being developed within three themes that fit with the Heritage Lottery Fund’s criteria.