Welcome to issue four of Tir Teg (Beautiful Land), the electronic newsletter from the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).  The AONB consists of 12 separate geographical areas - ten stretches of coastline, the Camel Estuary and Bodmin Moor.  Here you will find the latest news on and from 'the best bits' of Cornwall.

Would you pay £1 a year on your electric bill in exchange for the removal of the most unsightly overhead wires from our most precious landscapes?

Western Power Distribution (WPD) are seeking stakeholder support for their decision NOT to take part in a programme to ‘underground’ wires in the South West’s Areas of Outstanding Natural beauty (AONBs) and National Parks.

The somewhat loaded question on their web site reads: “Do you agree that replacing the overhead network with underground cables in National Parks is not an investment priority for customers as there are no supply reliability or carbon reduction benefits and the costs are very high?”

Western Power Distribution is the Distribution Network Operator (DNO) responsible for the local distribution of electricity along overhead wires and through underground cables in the South West. The network is one of the most extensive in the UK with 50,000 km of wire and 50,000 transformers.

The cost of under-grounding in the South West’s protected landscapes has been estimated at £13.6m. However this is only equivalent to around £1 on the average customer’s bill each year.

A number of DNOs across the country have worked with AONB Partnerships and National Park Authorities to identify areas where lines have a particular impact on the landscape and have begun a programme of placing these lines underground.

Western Power Distribution are the only DNO not to take part in this programme claiming that the annual cost of £1 per customer is too expensive.

If you would like to see Western Power do more to improve the finest landscapes of the South West please respond to the consultation before the closing date of 25 July 2008. Details can be found on the Western Power website – www.westernpower.org.uk and follow the Stakeholder Consultation link.

You could even send them a pound!

The special characteristics that make up our landscape and affect the way we live have been exhaustively researched and put together in a new Landscape Character Study. Everyone in the county is being offered the opportunity to comment on the study and take a look at how their own area has been mapped and described.

The Landscape Character Study has taken two years to complete and is the first comprehensive attempt to map and describe the different landscape areas of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly since 1994. The earlier study was one of the first in the UK and set a benchmark for landscape assessment across the country.

The Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Landscape Character Study will be available very soon on an interactive website. The main map allows access to descriptions about each Landscape Character Area and over 300 smaller constituent Landscape Description Units. Information is available on the natural, historic and visual environment as well as containing planning and land management guidelines.

Consultation ends towards the end of September.
http://www.cornwalllandscapes.org.uk

An offer has been received from the Country Landowners Business Association (CLA) for the AONB to be included at their annual conference. This is now due to go before the CLA Committee for approval. Further ideas for ways to mark the anniversary are being sought from AONB Partners and the general public. Ideas currently under discussion include an anniversary booklet, an audio visual ‘history’ project, a dedicated publicity campaign and a special anniversary annual conference with a prestigious guest speaker.
If anyone has ideas to contribute, please contact Peter at the AONB unit (pmaxted@cornwall.gov.uk)

At a South West Uplands Conference held on the 27th June (http://www.swcore.co.uk/news/news_core2.htm) the South West Regional Development Agency announced that £3million of the Rural Development Programme for England would be ring-fenced to support farming in the uplands of Exmoor, Dartmoor and Bodmin Moor. This welcome news is as a direct consequence of lobbying by the South West Uplands Federation to highlight the plight of upland farming following the changes in farm support payments, illustrated in a recent report on the economic viability of hill farming systems in South West England http://www.centres.ex.ac.uk/crpr/ExeterReport.execsummary.pdf

The RDA have since developed a SW Uplands Livestock Initiative and have requested the involvement of the Cornwall AONB Partnership as a key partner in a Programme Group to deliver this initiative on Bodmin Moor.

Around the year 2000, choughs began to naturally re-colonise the cliffs around the Lizard Peninsula in the South Coast (Western) section of the AONB and have bred successfully for the seventh successive year. Now for the first time in 150 years a pair of choughs has produced a nest of chicks in the far west of the county in the West Penwith AONB section.

The location is being kept a closely guarded secret but the successful breeding is thought to be a result of the nature conservation grazing schemes and agri-environment programmes that farmers have undertaken with the help of the AONB Partnership and the National Trust and Natural England.

The new interactive display materials were successfully used at the Cornwall AONB Annual Conference and the Royal Cornwall Show and are now in the Long Gallery at New County Hall, Truro. If you know of a suitably busy venue that could host the display please let us know - info@cornwall-aonb.gov.uk

Dehwelans, which means ‘the homecoming’ in Cornish, is the annual weeklong celebration, from 1st – 7th September, of all things Cornish, with performances, walks, talks, lectures, gigs, dancing, music, local history and heritage tours throughout South East Cornwall.

This year it is based in Looe, on the edge of the South Coast (Eastern) AONB section, which will welcome visitors from the worldwide Cornish community keen to immerse themselves in Cornish culture and heritage and have a chance to retrace their family ancestry.

58 delegates attended the Coprnwall AONB’s annual conference held at Pensilva on the edge of Bodmin Moor on 17th May 2008. Presentations from the AONB Unit were followed by speakers talking about the future of Moor. The speakers included John Waldon of the South West Uplands Federation who considered Bodmin Moor in the context of the upland areas of the South West, including Exmoor and Dartmoor; Rupert Hanbury-Tennison who gave a landowner’s perspective and discussed access in particular, and Jane Uglow who talked about the Caradon Hill Project that has received Heritage Lottery Funding.

A locally produced lunch was followed by a walk from Minions out around the Hurlers and up to the Cheesewring to look at land management issues, consider the future of the Heritage Centre and admire the landscape of the AONB.

The Conference was very successful and the feedback received via the feedback forms very encouraging.

Natural England have successfully bid for an additional £55k for landscape activity in the South West. The successful projects comprise
• Landscape sensitivity mapping
• Future Landscapes
• Embedding landscape
More details on each project will be available after the first workshops are held towards the end of July. In the meantime further details are available from Cathy.Fitzroy@naturalengland.org.uk.

The Cornwall AONB Sustainable Development Fund (SDF) Grants Panel Meeting on the 23rd of June approved funding for a number of projects:
• Publication of a new guide to Bodmin Moor Guide by the Best of Bodmin Moor group
• Managing specific invasive species (Hottentot Fig) by Duchy College
• Helford Voluntary Marine Conservation Area Local Projects by the HVMCA group
• Two National Trust Projects: Highertown Farm Sustainability Improvements and Bosigran: Re-connecting the Heath
• Wells, Springs and Shutes Interpretation by The Gerrans and Porthscatho Old Cornwall Society
and
• The Fowey Headwaters Project by the West Country Rivers Trust
We will be reporting on all these projects in Tir Teg as they progress throughout the year.

A second volume of reports on the archaeological surveys undertaken on Bodmin Moor in the 1980’s has been published by English Heritage.

The work covers the Industrial and post-Medieval landscapes of the Moor and provides detailed information on the history of mining, quarrying, china clay extraction and turf cutting.

The agriculture, transport networks and public amenities that developed to support the local communities involved in this work is also examined. Edited by Peter Herring, the book is available from English Heritage - for details contact the Historic Environment Service at Cornwall County Council.