Sustainable Development Fund 961.44 Kb - the Dorset AONB

Celebrating 3 years of the
Dorset AONB Sustainable
Development Fund

Chairman’s Foreword
The first three years of the Dorset AONB
Sustainable Development Fund have been
well worth celebrating. It’s been great to
be able to support so many local people
to get involved in their local landscape.
The Sustainable Development Fund is
financed 100% by Natural England,
whose purpose is to conserve, enhance
and manage the natural environment
for the benefit of current and future
generations.
Over the past three years the Dorset
AONB Partnership has given £250,000 in
grants to community groups, individuals
and local organisations to enable them
to take their landscape into their own
hands. With the help of this funding,
over £1.3 million worth of projects have
happened in the AONB over the last
three years, involving hundreds if not
thousands of people.
A big thank you to Natural England for
all their support, and for the Sustainable
Development Fund in particular – long
may it continue!
Tim Frost
Chairman of the Dorset AONB Partnership

Landscapes and local people
The Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty covers almost half of the
county – a nationally important landscape right on the doorstep of thousands
of Dorset residents. Here we celebrate the first three years of the Dorset AONB
Sustainable Development Fund which has helped put this special landscape
firmly in the hands of local people.
The Dorset AONB Partnership brings
together local authorities and
organisations who have a duty and
enthusiasm to protect and enhance
the natural beauty of the area. One
of the most exciting initiatives for
the Partnership has been to run the
Sustainable Development Fund over the
last three years. The Fund aims to get
local people thinking about how they can
help us keep the landscape in great shape
for future generations to enjoy.
With the help of the Chalk & Cheese
Local Action Group, we have handed
out funding to an amazing array of
projects – to people who live or work
in the area and have a love of the
landscape. From farm plastic recyling to
opening up new woodland walks, the
projects have one thing in common –
they all look at ways of connecting
with the landscape in a sustainable way.
So whether it’s about testing out new
ways of working or reviving old ones,
they all get the most out of the landscape
without impacting on its future.
We have been truly inspired by what
these projects have achieved and wanted
to put a spotlight on the people behind
them – and hope they will be an
inspiration to you too.

Productive landscapes
Our landscapes have a long history of being worked – for food, shelter and fuel
– and the character of the landscape has been shaped by such productivity.
In the face of climate change and pressures on land use, the Sustainable
Development Fund has supported some innovative projects that explore
how we can get fuel and food from the Dorset landscape in a sustainable way.
Woodfuel at the Kingcombe Centre
When we met Martin Biss at the
Kingcombe Environmental Education
Centre, he was busy unwrapping one of
the high tech wood fuel boilers ready for
installation. In amongst the bubble wrap
were two gleaming boilers which, fuelled
by wood pellets and chips, will heat the
whole education centre and provide hot
water too.
As Martin, a trustee of the Centre,
explained ‘As the 20 th anniversary of
the Centre approached, we felt we
needed to refresh the buildings and
set them off on a sustainable future.’
Initial advice came from Dorset AONB’s
Woodlink Project which aims to stimulate
the supply of woodfuel in Dorset by
getting small woodlands back into
management – benefiting wildlife
and creating jobs at the same time.
But Martin went on to build up his
knowledge with local contractor Phil
Upton and together they devised a
system combining woodfuel power with
solar and using a heat recycling system
to get the most out of both. They used
local contractors to upgrade the centre
and install the heating and water systems,
passing on the knowledge and sustaining
local jobs.
Indeed, Martin is keen to use the Centre
as an exemplar to encourage other
people to use woodfuel ‘We are an
educational charity and what a great
chance this is for people to learn how
effective wood can be to heat their
homes – and how it can help wildlife
an their bank balance too!’

‘As the 20 th anniversary of
the Centre approached, we
felt we needed to refresh the
buildings and set them off
on a sustainable future.’

Productive landscapes…green buildings
Food Processing Barn at Five Penny Farm
Over 200 people helped raise a new
barn at Five Penny Farm, Whitchurch
Canonicorum, to provide food processing
and storage facilities for a co-operative
of farmers in the Marshwood Vale.
Jyoti Fernandez, driving force behind the
project explains ‘We have a co-operative
of 46 members, all local small scale food
producers. We all want to produce food
in a way we that doesn’t have a negative
impact on the environment and so the
construction of the barn using locally
sourced materials - a timber frame,
thatch roof and cobb cellar - was really
important to us’.
The co-op members wanted to add value
to the food they grow to make their work
viable. They will use the barn to
transform what they grow or rear into
bacon, ham, salami, juice, jams, dairy
products, chutneys and herbal products.
All will be sold at local outlets and they
hope to run courses at the barn to share
their skills around.
Jyoti is pleased with what they have
achieved ‘The barn raising was great -
an amazing feeling to see such a tangible,
big, lasting building coming into being.
It has really brought the co-operative
together and inspired them to produce
more!’
Brownsea Island outdoor activity centre
The new outdoor activity centre on Brownsea Island follows
the scouting principles of ‘leaving the ground as you found
it’ throughout it’s design. Incorporating rainwater recycling,
water minimisation, wind turbine power generation and
biomass boilers for heat, the building will run with little
impact on the environment. It’s unique design also ensures
that it can be completely removed, including the foundations,
leaving no trace of it ever having been there.

‘The barn raising was great -
an amazing feeling to see
such a tangible, big, lasting
building coming into being!’

Productive Landscapes…food
Burton Bradstock Pig Project
Ten families, all with a passion for pork,
embarked on a village project to rear pigs
locally so that they could produce free
range pork that their children had a
hand in rearing.
Putting an advert in the local Post Office,
they soon found land on the edge of the
village and became proud owners of 7
Saddleback piglets from an organic farm
just down the road. As Janis Bernadini,
one of the pig feeders explained ‘it felt
quite daunting to be left in charge but
we soon got the hang of how to look after
them and the kids were really keen to
get involved’.
Tilly, one of the children who regularly
helped with feeding said ‘we really
missed the pigs once they had gone, but
enjoyed eating them too. Because we
knew where the meat came from, we
didn’t want to waste any of it!’
The group had to learn very new skills –
practical things such as fencing and
feeding through to setting up a Blog
to keep everyone involved and sourcing
the right sort of food. There was so
much enthusiasm that they even hired a
butcher to work with them for a day on
some of the pigs to teach them the basics
of butchery and about the different cuts
of meat.
The Project is now in its second year and
looking forward to a delivery of pork soon.
‘we really missed the
pigs once they had
gone, but enjoyed
eating them too.
Because we knew
where the meat came
from, we didn’t want
to waste any of it!’

Other food projects we have supported:
Bridport Food Festival attracts
thousands of people each year, all with an
interest in good quality, tasty local food.
In 2006 we supported the Sea to Vale
marquee which celebrated the links
between landscape, food and farming.
The Bridport Local Food Group organised
farm walks, food tastings and cooking
demonstrations to showcase some of
Dorset’s best local food, and enjoyed
the support of Lesley Waters and Hugh
Fearnley-Whittingstall for the event.
The organic small holding ‘Green &
Pleasant’ used the site of a pre-war
orchard to plant a new orchard at Up
Sydling, featuring local dessert and cider
apple varieties. Volunteers helped plant
the apple trees and look forward to open
days and apple festivals at the orchard
when it begins to bear fruit.
Dorset Knob Throwing
The first Dorset Knob Throwing Festival was held in Cattistock
in 2008 to show off the fantastic range of local food produced
in the area. Despite terrible weather, over a thousand people
came along to sample the local delights - and have fun with
Dorset Knob biscuits too!

Productive Landscapes…crafts
RushWorks
RushWorks is a project researching,
celebrating and reviving the traditional
rural craft of ‘rushing’ which was
practised in the Sturminster Newton
and Marnhull areas until the 1950s.
The project began harvesting rushes from
the River Stour with advice from Dorset
Wildlife Trust to ensure it didn’t disrupt
wildlife. The first harvest generated much
local interest and a Rush Festival was
organised to celebrate it as part of the
Sturminster Cheese Festival.
crafting a rush animal proved a great
medium to find out about the river, its
wildlife and the history of rush working.
RushWorks found that teaching rush
making to children has echos of the past -
records show that formal rush work
classes were run for children in the early
1900s. Together with written records,
video clips and stories from local rush
working families, they are piecing
together a fascinating picture of their
rush working past.
Traditionally these riverside rushes were
used to make baskets, mats, chair seats
and beehives. Allsorts of activities have
been set up to revive this craft and spread
the skills around. Local school children
have taken part with great enthusiasm –
Rush work days have also been held for
adults with great success and will help
sustain the rush work craft well into
the future.

Productive Landscapes…water
Water power at Upwey Mill
When Sue & Richard Willett moved to
Upwey Mill they were entranced by the
potential of this Grade 2* listed building
to be restored back in to a working mill.
But it wasn’t until the late 1990s when
concern about climate change focussed
their thoughts on the potential of the
Mill to generate electricity. As Sue said
‘all that water washing through the Mill
was just going to waste’.
Literally with their bare hands, they have
created a new race and installed a turbine
which will generate up to 15kW of
electricity an hour to the National Grid.
When asked what support they had with
the project in addition to SDF, Richard
explained ‘a Clear Skies grant paid for
the technical back up we needed in huge
quantities, but we got a lot of moral
support from other small scale microhydro
schemes such as Gants Mill in
Somerset and Town Mill in Lyme Regis.’
Moral support would have been needed
when creating the fall to power the
turbine. ‘The Big Hole was a bit of a low
point for us – we had to dig down deep
then line the hole with 40 tonnes of
concrete. We did everything ourselves,
apart from mix the concrete!’
The existing Mill wheel couldn’t be used
to make electricity as it wasn’t designed
to be in constant motion, so they
commissioned a new turbine from a
small scale producer in Cornwall and
set to work creating a race parallel to
the existing one.
Richard and Sue have flicked the switch
and are now proud owners of a working
turbine and are keen to share their
experiences with others embarking on
micro-hydro projects.
Magdalen Project
A new reedbed filter system has been created at the
Magdalen Project education centre near Chard. The
system will filter phosphates and detergents from
the waste water so that is clean enough, with
Environment Agency consent, to go straight into
local stream or be reused for showering.

‘We got a lot of moral support from
other small scale micro-hydro schemes
such as Gants Mill in Somerset and
Town Mill in Lyme Regis.’

Exploring and celebrating landscapes
We all have different ideas about what makes a great landscape, so it’s no surprise
that there have been lots of different ideas of how to celebrate this special part of
the world – and to explore it more too.
Woodland Walks in Frampton
Buoyed up by the success of developing
a Millennium Green in the village, a
group of local people spotted a strip
of woodland adjacent to the Village Hall
that would make a great new asset to
the community.
The woodland, known as Harry’s Wood,
runs peacefully along the River Frome and
being central to the village makes it very
popular with dog walkers too. Len Harris,
who has been a leading light in the
group, felt that much could be done to
improve the woodland for walkers and
for wildlife alike.
The first steps for the group were to get
specialist advice on what to do with the
wood. They drew up a Management Plan
for Harry’s Wood on that advice and the
butterfly and bird surveys they did
themselves.
As Ron pointed out ‘this project has
turned up quite a lot of skills locally,
unearthed lots of local knowledge’.
They’ve had to take their health and
safety responsibilities seriously and
trained up two volunteer chainsaw
operators to clear dangerous trees from
the path and roadside as well as doing
a weekly safety check.
Volunteers have also got involved in
clearing elder to help other woodland
plants grow, building new seats for
walkers and installing bird and bat boxes
too. One of the volunteers keeps a record
of birds and butterflies and highlights
them in a column in their monthly
parish mag.
As well as surprising skills that have been
unearthed, volunteer Peter Emery
recently found what is thought to be
Mesolithic worked flint and Bronze Age
remains of an enclosure thought to have
been a hunting camp – making Harry’s
Wood a very special place in the
village indeed.

‘this project has turned up
quite a lot of skills locally,
unearthed lots of local
knowledge’.

Exploring and celebrating landscapes
Shapeshift
Durlston Country Park was the scene for
an exciting arts project that explored the
common ground between art and science
in looking at our environment. Taking the
geology of the Jurassic Coast as a starting
point, artist Abigail Reynolds was
appointed to work with two scientists to
look deeper into how the landscape has
changed in the past and the changes that
we face due to climate change.
Abigail worked with members of the
Friends of Durlston Group to help her
explore the local landscape better and
how they perceive and value the
landscape around them.
The artwork that marked the culmination
of the project was built from recycled
materials, many of which came from
Durlston Castle itself which is being
refurbished. While the artwork is open to
interpretation, it reflects graphs showing
the changing levels of microfossils over
the last 200 million years and encouraged
viewers to take a long view when
thinking about their landscape.
Exploring the Coast
The Dorset Coast Forum also set out to
get people thinking about the Jurassic
Coast, this time focusing on primary
school age children.
Working with teachers from primary
schools along the coast, the Forum
identified what resources would be
useful in the classroom and devised an
Education Pack to meet their needs.
The pack is far from dull text book style –
it has games and an artefact box filled
with things you might find on the beach
so that children can understand more
about our very special Coast.

Understanding organic farms
Sydling Brook organic farm at Up Sydling
is proud to part of the Organic Farms
Network. Farming in a way that works
with nature, they are keen that the land,
air, water and wildlife are really looked
after, not just for today but for ever. With
this at the core of their work, they have
developed a successful farm business
including farm shop and incorporating
Woolsery Cheese processing and Green
& Pleasant co-operative on their land.
To demonstrate their enthusiasm for the
organic way of farming, they produced a
leaflet about the farm, what it grows and
why. The leaflet is available at the farm
shop so that visitors can understand
where the food they buy comes from.
Group visits to the farm are also
available by arrangement.
Dorset Farm Radio and archive of rural life
Trilith developed Dorset Farm Radio, a
web-based radio station aimed at linking
Dorset’s rural farming communities.
A variety of programmes, made by both
professionals and volunteers, have proved
very popular and a great way to celebrate
some of the success stories in the farming
world. Trilith also ran a hunt for cine films
and recordings of Dorset life to develop
a community film and audio archive,
turning up19 films and recordings from
the Dorset AONB.

Exploring and celebrating landscapes
Inside Out Festival
The first ever Inside Out festival in 2007
set out to run extraordinary events in
extraordinary places, attracting over
30,000 people to the biggest free outdoor
performance programme in the South
West. The Sustainable Development Fund
supported the West Bay and Hambledon
Hill events to see how these outdoor
spaces could be turned into performance
spaces for the day.
‘Counter Currents’ at West Bay laid on
drama, music, acrobatics and dance
against the backdrop of the Jurassic
Coast. Young people from the area were
offered the chance to perform in and
dance to a 10 000 strong crowd on the day.
‘Enclosure’ set up on Hambledon Hill
attracted 700 people despite wind and
rain, the atmospheric journey involving
dance, music and fire that many described
as a once in a lifetime experience. Local
school children had been involved in
pottery making in the run up to the event
and took part in the procession up the
hill on the night.
Inside Out has since helped launch the
Cultural Olympiad and hopes to return
in 2010 for another ground breaking
festival.
Landlines
4Reel Films used film celebrating our
landscape heritage through dance,
drama, music and animation, based on
the work of Thomas Hardy. Through their
‘Landlines’ project, the DVD film they
created uses sequences drawn from
Hardy’s work and translated into different
media, using his words as a soundtrack.
It includes factual information about
Hardy – the people and places that
influenced and inspired.

‘it was a once in a
lifetime experience’

Special landscapes…for people
Landscape and our heritage go hand in hand in the Dorset AONB and the
Sustainable Development Fund has given local people a way of expressing the
landscape heritage that is especially important to them.
Victorian Landscape Heritage Project
The Friends of Durlston wanted to restore
part of the Country Park’s Victorian
designed landscape along the South West
Coast Path National Trail, also the main
pedestrian route to Durlston Castle. One
of the traditional dry-stone walls along
the path had been dismantled and
replaced with a chain link fence,
detracting from the ‘New Elysian’
landscape envisaged by the creators
of the Park.
• Remedial repairs to the White Horse at Osmington by Dorset
Countryside and local volunteers.
• Preparation work by the National Trust for the
under-grounding overhead cables at West Bexington to
restore this special coastal landscape.
• Enhancing the local playing fields at Long Bredy to make
them a pleasant place to sit and relax.
The Friends Group removed scrub and the
offending fence and the recreated wall,
using locally quarried stone and local
contractors. Part of the wall was built
by local volunteers, trained in dry-stone
walling through two training events.
These introduced 18 new volunteers
to the craft of walling and set the
foundation for a larger initiative to
develop a Dry-stone Walling Centre
at Durlston.
Other special landscape projects we have supported

Bincombe Churchyard
Alan Doyle was busy putting the finishing
touches to the wall when we arrived at
Bincombe church near Weymouth, painstakingly
matching in the repairs with the existing wall.
Running alongside the inland route of the
South West Coast Path National Trail, hundreds
of walkers pass the churchyard, the walls being
a distinctive part of the village
character. Sadly, sections of the wall had
fallen into disrepair.
Alan, a local builder and skilled waller, helped
organise a party of volunteers to clear vegetation
and retrieve some of the lost stone and the
local landowner was able to offer further stone.
Over 30 metres of wall have now been repaired,
setting off the Grade 2* church beautifully.

Special landscapes…for wildlife
Wildlife windows
The idea for the ‘Wildlife Windows’
initiative came from the Chalk and Hawks
Project in 2005. It set up a scheme to
connect people with wildlife, using
cameras to capture hidden wildlife
behaviour without disturbing the animals.
Chalk & Hawks have designed and
developed new ideas including cameras
that attach to bird feeders to give
‘nose-to-beak’ views. An automatic CCTV
system for collecting video footage of
otters has also proved popular.
Sixteen cameras were installed, mostly at
visitor centres and bed and breakfast
establishments, where
promoting wildlife has become part of
a green tourism package. The equipment
gives people a unique view of wild
animals in their natural habitat, reinforcing
the importance of the AONB for wildlife.
St James Churchyard
St James Wildlife Group in Milton Abbas
set out to enhance the management of
their churchyard and cemetery,
making it a better place for wildlife
and improving access for local people.
This formed part of a wider project to
restore the historic landscapes around
the village and create a Heritage Hike.
The work has brought the local
community together with the local Art
Group producing watercolours of wildlife
that can be seen, and a healthy walking
initiative being run through the
doctor’s surgery.
Our Butterflies and Moths
The Dorset branch of Butterfly Conservation celebrated
the County’s butterflies and moths, to encourage greater
public support and involvement in their monitoring and
conservation. A promotional leaflet and series of village
events proved very successful as was a ‘butterfly festival’
to celebrate Dorset’s wildlife heritage.

Special landscapes…for wildlife
The Dorset AONB has an amazing wealth of wildlife – a great place for local
people to explore and celebrate the wildlife they have on their patch and to
give it a helping hand too.
Young people learn woodland skills
The British Trust for Conservation
Volunteers set up a project to engage
young socially at risk and disadvantaged
people in environmental management.
Six practical sessions were organised at
Bracketts Coppice Nature Reserve, where
19 young people were taught about
managing woods for wildlife and
undertook coppicing work and installed
nest boxes for dormice.
Wildlife rich meadows on the National
Trust’s Golden Cap estate can be grazed
again now that the vital water supply has
been renewed.
The South Winterbournes project
researched into these internationally
important streams and how to restore
them.
A number of the young people went on
to join Millennium Volunteer scheme and
other training programmes, and members
from the Weymouth Foyer who attended
the coppicing sessions organised and ran
a presentation for other residents on the
benefits and enjoyment of volunteering.
Other wildlife projects we have supported
The Axe and Char Environmental
Sustainability Project works with farmers
and local communities to improve the
environmental quality of the rivers
through sensitive management of their
catchment areas.

Other Dorset AONB Sustainable Development Fund
projects we have supported 2005 – 2008:
Planning for Biodiversity:
Dorset Wildlife Trust conference highlighting
how wildlife can benefit from the new planning
system.
Dorchester & Weymouth Greenways Study:
to investigate potential car free off road routes
in the area.
Restoring Dorset’s traditional Fingerposts:
part of the county’s heritage and much loved
by local people.
Rural Roads Pilot:
to develop a new protocol for managing rural
roads to respect character of the landscape –
which has now been adopted.
Low impact recycling facility:
collecting and recycling farm plastic to provide
an alternative to burning.
Cattistock: enhancing access by foot in the
village around the church.
Pride of Place Toolkit
If you are inspire by any of the projects
in this booklet, the Pride of Place toolkit
can help. It has been produced to help
communities make the most of their local
environment – with all the information you
will need to start turning ideas into action.
The Toolkit covers lots of topics relevant
to local communities – from Trees &
Local food processing training:
butchery skill course to local producers.
8 acre coppice:
woodland management by local people.
Bridging Hooke Park:
exploring new designs for foot bridges that
enhance the landscape.
Long Bredy Playing fields:
new planting for people and wildlife.
Harman Cross:
early feasibility study into Park & Ride facility.
Chalk & Cheese: study into future development
in promotion of local food.
Hardys Wessex:
exploration of how to explore Hardys view of
the landscape in a meaning way.
Shillingstone:
new trail in Stour valley giving miles without stiles.
Woodlands to Transport. Each topic comes
with ideas on what to do and up to date
information on where to go for advice,
information and funding.
For your free Pride of Place toolkit, please
contact Dorset AONB Partnership on
01305 756782, dorsetaonb@dorsetcc.co.uk
or www.dorsetaonb.org.uk.
Here to help!
The Dorset AONB Team are here to help you.
If you have ideas for a Sustainable Development
Funded project and want some advice on where
to start, please do contact us, we’ll be happy
to help.

Photo Credits:
Many thanks to all the projects who provided photos of their work.
Additional photos by:
Dave Penman / Moonfleet Photography
Dorset AONB Team
Mark Simons / DCC
Roy Riley

For more information on any of the projects featured in this booklet
or to discuss support for your own project, contact:
Dorset AONB Partnership,AONB Office,The Barracks, Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset DT1 1RN
Tel: 01305 756782 Fax: 01305 756780 Email: dorsetaonb@dorsetcc.gov.uk
www.dorsetaonb.org.uk
All leaflets can be made available in audio tape, large print and Braille, or
alternative languages on request. Please call 01305 756782 for further information.
The Dorset AONB Partnership includes the following organisations:
The Sustainable Development Fund is delivered locally by the Dorset AONB Partnership working with Chalk & Cheese. It is funded by Natural England on behalf of the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Design by Origin Designs Ltd www.origindesigns.co.uk