Sussex Lund awards £210,000 for High Weald conservation projects
The High Weald AONB Partnership is delighted to announce that the Sussex Lund grant programme has awarded £210,000 for landscape restoration and nature recovery projects in 2020.
In a year that has highlighted the huge importance of our connection with the beautiful landscape on our doorstep – and our responsibility to look after it – this much-needed funding will support 50 small-scale, practical projects designed to improve the ecology and landscape of the High Weald.
Recipients range from community groups, parish councils and schools to farming cooperatives, charities and landowners.
Sussex Lund is a collaboration between the High Weald AONB Partnership and Lund Trust, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin. The scheme offers grants of between £500 and £10,000 for projects in and around the High Weald (covering parts of Sussex, Kent and Surrey) that improve habitats, wildlife and scenic beauty.
This year’s projects include:
- Restoring hazel coppice for dormice and creating glades and rides in woodland
- Replacing and installing new barn owl nesting boxes across a 10km stretch of farmland
- Planting fruit trees and managing orchards in a nature-friendly way
- Creating wildflower-rich grassland to boost the number and diversity of pollinators
- Restoring and creating ponds and other wetland habitats
- Creating new woodland to provide habitat for a farm’s breeding nightingale population
- And many more activities – click here for a full list: pdfSussex Lund Grant Summary – 2020 (153 KB) .
INSPIRED? GET IN TOUCH NOW!
We are already talking to potential applicants for Sussex Lund 2021. If you have an idea for a project, please contact the High Weald team as soon as possible for an informal chat and to book your socially-distanced site visit. Call 01424 723011 or email sussexlund@highweald.org.
Sussex Lund is open to anyone who has a project that will benefit the landscape of the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. This includes charities, community groups, schools, church trusts, parish and town councils, farmers and landowners. For more information on Sussex Lund and the application criteria, please visit our Sussex Lund page.
Images
1) Volunteers at Holy Trinity Primary School, Cuckfield, plant wildflower plugs in their newly-created meadow as part of their 2019 Sussex Lund project.
2) A wetland scrape and leaky woody dam at Laughton Greenwood; part of the community woodland’s natural flood management project, funded by Sussex Lund in 2019.
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