Enjoying and understanding the North Pennines

Encouraging local people and visitors to explore, enjoy and understand the area is an important aspect of the AONB Partnership's work.   

It is also widely acknowledged that our rural character, landscape, biodiversity, geodiversity and historic environment will be the motive force for our economy in years to come.

Highlights:

• Many new events, publications and on-site interpretation led by the team helped people to explore, enjoy and understand the North Pennines
• 24,000 copies of the post-arrival North Pennines Pocket Guide 2010-11 were distributed to outlets all over the North
• We held the seventh Northern Rocks Festival - 30 events exploring the area's geology and landscape

Some of our achievements this year:

Our work with schools included:

• Under our CELL (Changing Environments Landscape Laboratory) programme, students from Samuel King's School, Alston and William Howard, Brampton spent a year out in the field working alongside scientists collecting data that will feed into habitat conservation programmes
• In May 2010 more than 200 Key Stage 2 schoolchildren took part in our pioneering outdoor learning experience at Whitely Castle Roman Fort near Alston in Cumbria. 'Epic Epiacum' engaged the children in a range of activities, including learning to march as Roman centurions, discovering what an 18th Century miner would eat for lunch and the intricacies of archaeological surveying
• We awarded 21 travel grants to schools totalling £4,500 and helped more than 670 young people to experience the North Pennines at first hand
• We made two films with Class 9S of Wolsingham School, helping them to understand and celebrate their local geology and landscape. The pupils were involved in all aspects of the film-making including camera work, animations, sound recording and appearing on camera. As part of the project the school is being 'e-twinned' with a school in a Malaysian Geopark and the two schools are sharing their films with each other across the Internet
• Our Three Steps to Hay Time education programme was run with seven primary schools. This included a hay meadow visit, a carousel of activities at the 'Hay What's the Fuss - Our Marvellous Meadows' exhibition, and a hay time themed visit to Beamish Museum
• We ran a hay time art competition for schools, including an 'Oscars-style' award ceremony
• Our children's geology clubs, Rock Detectives, ran for a fifth year, providing 17 events with an emphasis on fun and discovery for children aged 6-12

Other ways in which we reached out to local people and visitors:

Interpretation and access:

• New interpretation got underway for Cow Green Reservoir, Killhope - the North of England Lead Mining Museum and Hartside viewpoint. New interpretation panels were installed at Low Force, Gibson's Cave and Bowlees Quarry. New banner stands were produced for use in Blanchland Abbey
• We completed an audio-visual geotrail for Slitt Wood, with our Geologist Dr Elizabeth Pickett and Ian Forbes MBE, and began work on another for Holwick
• We carried out an oral history project based on the memories of people who had worked in the quarry industries of Teesdale and Weardale. The DVD produced also has a fascinating photo archive and is accompanied by a fully illustrated booklet
• We produced display panels to highlight the North Pennines AONB for Alston Moor Local Links Information Centre
• Our successful partnership with Northumbrian Water Ltd continued with the completion of an 'all abilities' path on Derwent Reservoir's north shore enabling a further 3km of easy access from the dam to Millshields car park
• In close partnership with the landowner and local community groups, we completed an 'all abilities' path in Blanchland and improved the existing routes between Blanchland and Baybridge.
• We replaced more than 40 information notices, in response to restriction changes, and installed responsible access signs on large areas of moorland estates with open access rights
• We facilitated continued use of the off-road C2C Cycle Route across Stanhope Common

Publications and the media:

• 24,000 copies of the post-arrival North Pennines Pocket Guide 2010-11 were distributed to outlets in Cumbria, Durham, Northumberland, North Yorkshire and the North East coast
• We produced two issues of North Pennines News, our magazine which is distributed door-to-door to 14,000 households in the AONB. A further 3,000 copies went to outlets such as TICs, were posted to individuals on our mailing list, or given out at country shows
• Other new publications included three new Geotrails (Allenheads, Holwick and Ashes Quarry); Peatlands of the North Pennines; Water Voles of the North Pennines (a guide for farmers and landowners). Work continued on a popular geology book for the AONB
• 42 press releases were issued in 2010, resulting in more than 140 press cuttings
• Television and radio coverage was achieved for work on hay meadows, geology, community archaeology and public events
• We continued to offer familiarisation visits for journalists
• We started monitoring the use of our website in August 2010, and based on those figures we estimate around 42,000 people will have looked in during the year
• Our first e-news bulletin went out to more than 300 people in February 2011
• We launched a Twitter feed www.twitter.com/NorthPennAONB and now have more than 700 followers. We've also set up a Facebook fanpage - www.facebook.com/NorthPenninesAONB