Latest News
what's going on in the cornwall aonb? read the stories below to find out.
AONB) ANNUAL FORUM ON SAT 17th MARCH 2012, W CORNWALL (venue: penwith college)
Cornwall AONB People in Landscape
Photo Competition 2011
cornwall sustainable tourism project (coast) launches new website
NATIONAL AONB CONFERENCE - JULY 2011
PHOTO COMPETITION WINNERS
BLISLAND CP SCHOOL GOES FOR NATURAL ENERGY
DAVID VS GOLIATH - HOUSING VICTORY
CORNWALL AONB ATLAS WINS AWARD
AONB) ANNUAL FORUM ON SAT 17th MARCH 2012, W CORNWALL - penwith college
Over the next three years, we shall be holding an ‘annual forum’ in each of the three planning areas of Cornwall - West, Central and East. We will be discussing issues of importance to everyone who values our precious, protected landscapes and is interested in how we look after them. We hope to involve as many members of the local community, parishes, wards and neighbourhoods, as possible.
The first forum will be held on Saturday 17th March 2012 in the West section of the county (at Penwith College, Penzance) so will primarily be most relevant for those from that area. Please put the date in your diaries now and circulate to any groups/individuals that you think would be interested in attending. We have already informed all parish/town councils in the AONB, all 123 CC ward members of the date, Local Network Area Managers and some community groups. Attendance is free and open to anyone interested in our protected landscape.
Cornwall AONB People in Landscape
Photo Competition 2011
‘People in Landscape’ was the title of our most recent photo competition. The winning pictures will be used to illustrate a new book on the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and other AONB publications over the next year.
Winners were featured in the December issue of myCornwall magazine.
Prizes included a guided walk and picnic in the AONB, a boat trip on the Fal, membership of the Cornwall Wildlife Trust, a year’s subscription to myCornwall and local Cornish produce. The winning photo is of Godrevy surfers
NEXT PARTNERSHIP
Our n ext AONB Partnership meetin will be on March 7th.
CORNWALL SUSTAINABLE TOURISM PROJECT LAUNCHES NEW WEBSITE
AONB. Short acronym. Impenetrable to many. But what an extraordinary gift inside. And at the heart of why we love Cornwall - and why our visitors do.
So...are you in, or near it? Do you even know? And if you do, do you know what to say about it to light that fire in your visitors' imaginations?
Why not ensure that you, your website and printed material is doing all they can, and should, to sing out loud of the outstanding - ness of our land. And you can get all the help you need right here. Right now.
http://www.coastproject.co.uk/theland
Click straight through to the CoaST "The Land" section for information and figures, communication top tips and floundering faux-pas, stonking examples of good practice, funky facts and fabulous fables, maps, ways with words - dazzlingly brilliant words to use to inspire, and grey, curled, exhausted ones to avoid; new AONB branded towel cards and visitor charters, and a brand new "We're in the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty" logo.
The Cornwall AONB. A gift to us all; and Outstanding By Nature. We just need to know how to say it; to tell its story (and the CoaST project can help).
NATIONAL AONB CONFERENCE - JULY 2011
View photos and listen to the speeches made during the Conference on the National Association for AONBs website http://www.landscapesforlifeconference.org.uk/
The national importance of our local protected landscapes received an extra boost this year with the announcement that Cornwall was chosen to host the prestigious national conference run by the National Association for Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (NAAONB).
The conference was held 5th-7th July 2011 and be hosted by the Cornwall, Tamar and Isles of Scilly Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) Partnerships
It took place at the Combined Universities Tremough campus in Penryn, chosen for its facilities, location and eco-friendly credentials (it has just received a £30 million investment in a new Environment and Sustainability Institute). Delegates from most of the UK’s 47 AONBs attended from as far afield as Northumberland, East Anglia, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The conference considered local solutions to national issues and in particular looked at how AONB Partnerships unlock the value of localism, build volunteer capacity and involve the third sector in Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Key areas addressed by speakers, field trips and focused workshop sessions included:
- Developing wider engagement in the work of AONBs–outreach initiatives (young people, ethnic minorities), volunteering initiatives,
- Initiating and maintaining participation at the local level – sustaining interest and involvement in AONB issues in the longer term, initiatives supporting community organisations and organisers,
- Building a framework of competency at the local level - educational and learning initiatives, neighbourhood planning initiatives
- Working to embed AONB delivery in the third sector – supporting co operatives, health and social enterprise initiatives in AONBs
Listen to the speeches and view photos taken during the Conference
Over 30% of the County of Cornwall is designated and protected with all the most beautiful and scenic areas such as the Roseland, Lizard and North Coast included. Four-fifths of the visitors to Cornwall (that’s nearly four million people per year) say that the landscape and scenery is the main reason they come. Cornwall has international status as well with the AONB designation being an international one (IUCN Cat V), the World Heritage mining areas and the Europarc designation for the AONB awarded last year).
It was quite a challenge for the teams from Cornwall, Tamar and Scilly AONBs to provide delegates to the conference with a full idea of what we have to offer locally – not because there isn’t enough to see but because there is so much! However the small and enthusiastic Cornwall AONB team and colleagues worked flat out to make the 13th NAAONB national conference the best ever and to send delegates and national and international speakers away with a real sense of the beauty and value of the local landscape.
Ten thousand years ago, just after the last Ice Age, Bodmin Moor was mostly covered in forest. Like much of upland Britain, during the New Stone Age and the Bronze Age the area was gradually cleared and many settlements were built.
PHOTO COMPETITION WINNERS
‘Living Landscape’ was the title of the Cornwall AONB photo competition held in conjunction with My Cornwall magazine (who helped promote the competition). The closing date for entries was 30 September 2010. Over 100 photos were entered in the competition. Photos were judged and there were 4 winnning photos:
1ST PRIZE - Swan at St Michael's Mount - Photographer Simon Devetta
2ND PRIZE - Sunrise at the Mount - Photographer Jim Tarbox
3RD PRIZE - Godrevy Island - Photographer Dan Chapman
4TH PRIZE - Sculpture at Trevaunance Bay - Photographer Karen Haigh
The winning photos featured in the December/January 2010/11 edition of the My Cornwall magazine. All prizes were kindly donated and included a vintage motor boat launch on the Carrick Roads; gliding flight to take ariel photos of the AONB; a year's Cornwall Wildlife Trust membership; and a year's subscription to My Cornwall magazine.
The winning pictures will be used to illustrate the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Management Plan which outlines how we will look after our protected landscapes over the next five years.
All photos received will be placed into the Cornwall AONB photo library and used on the AONB website, in printed material, and used by the AONB partner organisations. The photographer will be credited in all cases where the photos are used.
BLISLAND CP SCHOOL GOES FOR NATURAL ENERGY
Blisland CP School has upped its green credentials still further, having just had a Solar PV system fitted to its roof to allow it to capture natural energy.
The school, one of the oldest on Bodmin Moor, was awarded a grant towards the installation from the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Sustainable Development Fund (AONB/SDF)and the children have been busy watching the installation as well as monitoring how much the system is now reducing the school’s electricity bill via a special data logging device.
Local Moor-based Peninsula Renewable Energy installed the 3.8 kW system which means the school can now not only benefit from its own supply of sustainable energy, but also take advantage of the Government’s Feed in Tariff which pays a premium for energy generated by renewable energy systems such as solar panels.
“We were delighted to support this project,” said AONB Partnership Manager Colette Holden. “We always try and support sympathetic sustainable development in the Cornwall AONB and this green energy scheme fits the bill perfectly.”
DAVID VS GOLIATH
Working for an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is not all butterfly walks and bat boxes. Sometimes we have to get involved in the murky world of politics and the complex issues of planning.
And some AONBs are more ‘strategic’ than others. Smaller, well-defined areas can work at ground level and on mostly project-based activities. Larger more diverse AONBs have to work much harder at a macro level - influencing, cajoling, using the various elements of the partnership and often, to be blunt, not always being appreciated for the ‘behind the scenes’ effort involved.
So it was that the Cornwall AONB, one of the largest and certainly the most diverse with 12 different sections, reacted with particular delight recently after a long, strategic planning battle was finally won.
The Secretary of State for Communities refused planning permission for over 1,000 dwellings, roads and other associated development on pristine countryside outside Truro. This was after a planning appeal in which the inspector ignored the fact that the land was on the edge of the Cornwall AONB and had recommended that the ‘development’ be allowed. The potential developers were LXB, a very large offshore-based property company.
The Secretary of State’s decision was the culmination of years of hard work by the AONB team and vindication of their strategic approach to landscape management.
The result was a truly ‘David over Goliath’ one, with AONB personnel supporting the local planning authorities and the local community against powerful outside interests.
The Secretary of State attached significant weight to the ‘environmental sensitivity of the site’. He recognised the ‘substantial harm which the development would cause both to the AONB and to the city of Truro within its landscape setting’. He considered that ‘the serious and permanent environmental damage which the scheme would cause to the adjoining Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the setting of the city of Truro should prevail’.
This view also reflects the importance that local people attach to their countryside and the AONB – many locals fought long and hard to protect their landscape.
Cornwall AONB Atlas wins Landscape Institute Award
Detailed data about the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (over 25% of the County) has been collected into an AONB ‘Atlas’ which has just been commended in the prestigious Landscape Institute Awards held in London.
The Atlas is a web-based, interactive tool containing a wide range of mapped and quantitative data. It is vital as an evidence base for the new AONB Management Plan which will be submitted to Cornwall Council’sCabinet early in the New Year.
The Atlas will also guide the other work of the AONB Partnership and is already proving very important to planners and policy makers as they make decisions in and for our most precious landscapes.
The Landscape Institute judges, commenting on the AONB Atlas said: “This is a riveting repository of information about this much-loved corner of England,” and “A complex subject that has been clearly communicated.”
The Atlas was designed by Bristol-based Land Use Consultants as an extension to the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly AONB Landscape Monitoring Project which was completed in 2008.
View the Atlas on this website. Read the Instructions page as you may need to download some free software to be able to view the Atlas.
