AS BLAENAVON’S Forgotten Landscape Project nears its end, HAYLEY MILLS looks at what the project has achieved and how it will leave a lasting imprint on the area

The Forgotten Landscapes Project (FLP) was established in 2008 to help develop the Blaenavon World Heritage Site as an internationally recognised visitor destination and will formally come to an end in May 2015.

The aims of the project include the protection of the area’s industrial heritage as the world’s major producer of iron and coal in the 19th century, conservation of the important industrial archaeology, extensive heather moorland and the red grouse, and to raise awareness of the area’s global importance through high quality interpretation, school visits, guided walks and talks.

Leading the project is Steve Rogers who said that the project has been a great success.

He explained that the project started by building up a volunteer base - there are now more than 50 volunteers – and worked to manage the common land and educate people about the landscape.

The FLP was set up in Blaenavon as it is a designated World Heritage Site.

The Blaenavon industrial landscape was inscribed by the World Heritage Committee at its 24th Congress held at Cairns, Australia in 2000.

A report to the World Heritage Committee in 2000 stated: “The area around Blaenavon bears eloquent and exceptional testimony to the pre-eminence of South Wales as the world’s major producer of iron and coal in the nineteenth century. It is a remarkably complete example of a nineteenth century landscape.”

As a World Heritage Site there was a need for conservation but there were limited financial resources.

The project set out to create links with communities, highlight the area as a visitor destination, offer education opportunities to create an understanding of the local area, create volunteering opportunities within the landscape and help crack down on illegal activities.

Following a consultation period in 2008 the FLP was developed and was awarded £1.6 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund to further develop and enhance the area.

Through match funding, a total of £2.5 million was given to the project, and the scheme commenced in June 2010.

The World Heritage Site is 33sq km but the FLP covers an area of 71sq km.

The project vision statement is "A World Heritage Site and its landscape setting in an excellent state of conservation, understood, accessed, enjoyed and cared for by all - managed through strong community partnership and involvement".

The project engaged with local children so that they understood the environment in which they live.

Projects included woodland walks to learn about wildlife, visiting local historical sites such as Big Pit, and taking part in walks looking at how the landscape looked during the Victorian times.

The World Heritage Centre also acts as an educational resource to help people to understand the Outstanding Universal Value of the Blaenavon Industrial Landscape World Heritage Site.

After the FLP has come to a close the centre will still act as an educational base, while Torfaen's Heritage Officer Ashleigh Taylor will continue to offer educational walks and activities within the landscape.

The Visit Blaenavon website, www.visitblaenavon.co.uk, is also set up to engage with communities, both locally and nationally.

The leader of Torfaen council and chairman of the Blaenavon Partnership, Bob Wellington, said: “The Forgotten Landscapes Project has been a great success. Not only has it helped to protect this globally important World Heritage Site for generations to come, it has encouraged many people to engage with their heritage for the first time.

“The Forgotten Landscapes team have done a fantastic job, and a big thank you must also go to the local commoners, and the Blaenavon World Heritage Environmental Group volunteers who have given up hundreds of hours of their own time for the benefit of the World Heritage Site, and the wider community.”

Volunteers were seen as a key to the success of the project - they are vital to achieving effective management of the landscape and they will help assure the future of the heritage landscape when the project has come to an end.

Projects undertaken by volunteers included dry stone walling, conservation and monitoring of habitats, species and industrial structures and land management such as bracken bashing, controlled burning of mature heather, creating reedbeds, and stock fencing.

The project aimed to offer 120 training days and 455 volunteer days, but actually delivered 197 training days and 1,273 volunteer days.

Some of the volunteers' achievements include the Govilon Line cycle route and wildlife corridor, Cwm Llanwenarth and Blorenge public rights of way net work, litter and fly tipping projects, moorland habitat management and local promoted routes in Clydach gorge.

In return the volunteers gained experience and training from wardens to become a skilled work force.

The project has kept in touch with local people by offering talks, holding meetings with commoners and via social media, with their Visit Blaenavon Facebook page having 495 friends and the twitter account 1,203 followers.

Within the BWH site there is common land, which is land owned by one person or organisation, but over which other people can exercise certain traditional rights, such as allowing their livestock to graze upon it.

One part of the project was to build awareness for the historic contribution of the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal.

Trails, signage, special benches have been put up along the canal by the project especially to celebrate the 200 year anniversary in 2012.

The project was also behind the development of a world-class biking track.

The new BMX and MTB track was built at the World Heritage Site, called the Camel’s Back Pump Track.

The FLP chose to create the facility after working closely with Blaenavon’s youth groups, who wanted sites for outdoor recreation.

The Forgotten Landscapes area is made up of 48% or about 41 square kilometers of common land and includes parts of 10 common land units.

The 10 units are covered by four commoners’ associations, the Blorenge, Blaenavon, Llanhilleth and the Nantyglo and Blaina Commoners’ Associations.

The area is grazed by about 4,000 sheep, plus small numbers of cattle and ponies.

Problems most frequently raised by the commoners were boundaries, bracken, dogs and illegal off-road vehicles.

FLP was the associations’ first experience of working together in delivering a landscape scale project with prescribed objectives and targets.

Commoners have participated in:

• bracken spraying, where six graziers received accredited training to enable them to provide contracting services to carry out the work.

• Heather cutting, which worked to control and reduce the scrub and the creation of strategic firebreaks. Again, commoner contractors undertook the work. .

• Also repairing fencing to so that livestock could be held on the common and repairing wells.

Gwent Police have also been involved in the project as through the use of external funding, an officer, PC Rob Maddocks, was appointed to focus on Landscape Crime and rural issues.

He concentrated on tackling illegal use of off road vehicles, arson/wildfire on the mountainside, fly tipping, wildlife crime, steel theft, anti-social behaviour/crime in isolated areas and vulnerable/missing persons.

There were 15 Multi-agency illegal off-road enforcement operations, the biggest of which took four months to plan and involved 16 different agencies, 10 police sections, helicopters, off-road bikes, mountain bikes and over 40 people in these different roles.

These, combined with daily patrols, produced the following results,

• 40 + vehicles seized under Police Reform Act or Road Traffic Act,

• 50+ formal warnings under sect 59 Police Reform Act issued,

• 100+ verbal warnings issued,

• 40+ £30 fines issued for riding on common land,

• 15 arrests for offences ranging from scrap-metal theft to possession of drugs.

Evidence suggests that most wildfires are started deliberately. In 2004 a fire on the Blorenge Mountain raged for over a month costing the local tax payer over 1 million pounds causing long-term environmental damage.

FLP worked with local commoners and ecologists to map out and cut firebreaks, then utilise volunteers/cadets to redistribute the heather into damaged or burnt areas.

The project also worked with South Wales Fire and Rescue Service to develop a Regional Wildfire Plan for the Blaenavon area.

Gwent Police also conducted high visibility Mountain Watch patrols during the fire season to deter possible offenders.

Officers also worked in partnership with local councils, Fly-Tip Action Wales and Keep Wales Tidy to target fly tipping.

This resulted in 35 court prosecutions/fines completed, 50 fly-tip sites geo-mapped and the use of “smartwater” on potential fly-tip material materials to prevent and detect offences.

Gwent Police also dealt with over 50 incidents of wildlife crime including deer and salmon poaching, badger baiting, moss theft, destruction of bird habitats/bat roosts and theft of birds and their eggs.

The impact of the project was that the number of off-road vehicles seen in the area was down by 53%, the number of calls of complaint from members of the public was down by 56%, fly-tips were mostly cleaned up within 48 hours of referral and new incidents were rare, and the number of reported thefts from tourist attraction sites fell by 43%.

PC Maddocks believes that there has to be continued police presence in the area after the project has finished.

The FLP project has left a lasting legacy through education over 5,000 school children and working with Torfaen’s Community Heritage Development Officer who offers educational walks, it also created ten new trails, treasure markers, trail leaflets, and interpretation, while the World Heritage Centre will act as an information point for visitors.

Lastly, the landscape of Blaenavon is no longer forgotten.