National Lottery Heritage Fund Grant
We are delighted to inform our members that The Friends of Ilkley Moor have been awarded a £64,000 grant by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. This substantial grant will help us conserve the heritage of Ilkley Moor and provide opportunities for people to learn about it and help conserve it.
This grant comes from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, made possible by National Lottery players.
It forms a 2-year project commencing February 2024 to January 2026 and will undertake habitat management and restoration of the peatland and heathland habitats in some areas of Ilkley Moor. Habitat management will also be undertaken in other areas important for wildlife as well as minor footpath maintenance. Volunteer days will be delivered to achieve this.
The project will link up with the peatland restoration works being undertaken on the moor to plant sphagnum moss, remove invasive spruce saplings from Crawshaw Moss and undertake other peatland restoration works.
Bracken will be cut, in selected areas, using a flailbot, and form part of our volunteer days, to restore the heathland habitat, providing areas of restored heathland blooming with heather and bilberries.
All works will be undertaken in line with the Ilkley Moor Management Plan, National Biodiversity Strategies; and in consultation and working with Bradford Council and Natural England.
The project will deliver an extensive and diverse programme of community engagement on Ilkley Moor linked to the Moors heritage: events, volunteer days, health and wellbeing walks, and educational activities. So that a wide range of people have opportunities to benefit from Ilkley Moor’s heritage, learn about it and help conserve it.
It will contribute to the conservation of priority habitats and species. The restoration of the peatland will provide some nature-based solutions for carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation, flood alleviation, water storage, reduce wildfires and increase water quality. There is a local need for these solutions to reduce the wildfires which have occurred on Ilkley Moor, and flooding in Ilkley Town. There is a need generally to enhance water storage, water quality and provide climate change mitigation.
We are delighted that we’ve received this support thanks to National Lottery players and it’s great to know that we are a step closer to preserving it for future generations people, and of course wildlife. Additionally it will provide opportunities for people to learn about and get involved in heritage conservation.
We hope this project will also work towards increasing the Friends of Ilkley Moor membership, to make the FoIM more resilient. Each membership helps to conserve Ilkley Moors’ heritage.
As a charity we are committed to helping conserve the heritage of Ilkley Moor; and delivering our community engagement programme. We will continue to provide practical support through our volunteers to help manage the habitats and maintain footpaths and undertake fundraising to support this.
Our 2024 Events and Learning programme will soon be out and will include a diverse range of volunteer days and events. Full information will be included on our website www.ilkleymoor.org when our programme has been finalised.
Extra volunteer days to plant Sphagnum Moss on Ilkley Moors peatland will take place on the 20th February, 5th March and 19th March. 10am until 1pm. Contact Tracy Gray if you would like to help. tracy@ilkleymoor.org
25,000 Sphagnum Moss plug plants will be planted throughout these months. As well as helping restore the peatland, people will learn about the biodiversity of this habitat and the importance of peatlands for carbon capture, flood alleviation and reduced wildfire risk.
