From the Chairman
Welcome to the 2010-11 Annual Review for the North Pennines AONB Partnership Staff Unit.
This electronic format is a departure from our usual printed version, but we hope you find it easy to read and to navigate. In this brief summary we don't attempt to show everything the team has done - instead we present a summary of achievements, a snapshot of the activities that have been carried out this year with the support of a wide range of partners.
2010-11 saw completion of our new Planning Guidelines and our Building Design Guidance documents, after extensive consultations. Such documents take a lot of effort to produce, but they are already proving their value by providing real practical help to developers (and planners).
Conservation work
Peatlands and hay meadows continue to benefit from our Peatscapes and Hay Time projects and the practical, on the ground, conservation work we are doing. Once again we have had a major focus on using our geological heritage to support sustainable development, through our successful children's clubs, our Geology Festival and new interpretation projects of many kinds. I'm especially pleased with the wonderful film-making project we did with Class 9S of Wolsingham School and Community College.
Living North Pennines
Our Heritage Lottery Fund Landscape Partnership Scheme, 'Living North Pennines', has continued to make a huge impact, consolidating buildings and structures, creating new woodlands, conserving species and encouraging enjoyment and understanding of the countryside through events and activities of all kinds.
Sustainable Development Fund
Our Sustainable Development Fund supported 19 new community projects this year, from renewables to tourism projects to educational projects and more. This was also a year when the number of people on our volunteers database passed 400, with 300 people signed up to our Altogether Archaeology. We've also been behind the launch of the new charity The Friends of the North Pennines.
Quality partnerships
Though the work in this review is initiated and led by the Staff Unit, much of it is only possible through the good relations we have built up with those who own and manage the land. We are proud of these relationships, which can be summed up for me in the words of one local farmer who said, "The AONB always takes the time to listen to us". We are also indebted to Natural England and our local authority partners, as well as other partners and supporters such as English Heritage who have trusted us to keep delivering the highest quality projects.
Value for money
We have always run a tight ship and have made a little go a long way, drawing in from 'outside' far more than we cost locally. Our Director often remarks on the importance of understanding the word 'value' and that we have to recognise not just the value of the financial resources we bring to the area but the value of the memories we make with people, the health and well-being benefits of the landscapes we help to conserve and the goods and services that these landscapes provide for society. All this is of course true, but our operations still also represent tremendous value for money in old fashioned cash terms too - for every £1 provided by my own local authority last year the team generated a further £286!
It has been a pleasure to Chair the Partnership again this year and to support the numerous achievements of the highly skilled and committed team and its many partners. I have now stepped down as a Councillor and therefore as Chairman of the AONB Partnership too. I wish the new Chairman, Cllr Eddie Tomlinson, every success. The AONB, and the AONB team, is such an asset to the area and I'm very proud to have been associated with it for nearly 20 years. I hope you enjoy reading this report and that you take the chance to get involved in the work of the AONB Partnership this year, and in the years to come.
Cllr Richard Turner, Chairman, North Pennines AONB Partnership, July 2011