Your Newsletter Editor, Roy Denney, is a member of the steering group who have a lottery grant of close on £3,000,000 to enhance and protect Charnwood Forest and the various components of the project are being carried out by organisations who are being selected and given contracts at the moment. Some have started work and others await the end of lockdown restrictions.
As support for the project members of the Ramblers have put together a selection of 18 walks in the forest area enabling people living in any of the communities on the edge of the Forest somewhere to go straight from their doorsteps.
Roy is part of the project representing the Leicestershire Local Access Forum which is a partner in the project. It does not however have funds as such to contribute but volunteer hours are costed and count towards the match-funding requirement.
There are many strands to the project with a major one being to share information about the underlying internationally important geology which formed a large part of the bid reasoning. Charnwood has some of the most significant geology in Britain and indeed the world from incredible fossils of some of the first life on earth, to amazing ancient volcanoes that continue to shape the landscape today. The region’s exceptional geological heritage prompts a question: what more should be done to celebrate, promote, and protect this unique resource?
It is the underlying geology that has left us the wonderful locations that make up the Regional Park. The volcanic hard rock is evident in many outcrops and has made the land unworkable for agriculture and as such largely undisturbed for centuries. Later quarrying to use the same rock has also left big holes and rock faces and a wide range of habitats in a very small area, a Lake District in miniature. How do they show off these wonders without exposing them to vandalism of theft has still to be resolved as well as deciding how the community could work together over the coming years to protect and interpret it. It is important to enhance geological conservation especially given the potential for future protective designation, possibly even international Geopark Status.
At the very least the area should be one of outstanding natural beauty (an AONB) but all such protective designations are currently under review by government.
Another major plank of the project is one close to our hearts in that improved access to the area is high on the agenda.
Sitting above this steering group is the actual Board of the Charnwood Forest Regional Park formed to look after the area before the lottery bid was conceived and which will continue after this five year project is concluded. Roy is a member of the Board.
Prior to this project one thing the board did was support Roy in the production of a walkers map of the Forest now in its second edition. These are available from shops and visitor centres.
Partners in the Charnwood Forest operation overall include Leicestershire County Council, National Forest Company, Leicestershire Promotions (Tourism), Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council, Bradgate Park Trust, Leicestershire & Rutland Wildlife Trust, North West Leicestershire District Council, Aggregate Industries UK Ltd, Charnwood Borough Council and Natural England.