Representatives from community groups, town and parish councils and charities across the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) have come together for a special event at Wadhurst Park to celebrate their Sussex Lund funding success.

Created by Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin, this year Sussex Lund has allocated more than £150,000 to 35 projects designed to improve the ecology and landscape of the AONB. Each project will receive a grant of between £500 and £10,000. Since it launched in 2016, Sussex Lund has awarded £540,000 to 100 projects.

The High Weald AONB Partnership administers the fund in collaboration with Lund Trust, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin.

Sussex Lund supports projects that make tangible improvements to the High Weald and can inspire wider change. This year’s projects include:

  • Creating a pond and dipping platform in Crowborough’s new pocket park
  • Planting hazel cobnut trees and hazel whips to increase Dormouse habitat
  • Several hedge-laying and restoration projects to create wildlife corridors and maintain historic boundary lines
  • Support for volunteer groups managing woodland, grassland and community green spaces
  • Removing invasive species, such as rhododendron, from small community woodlands.

Lisbet Rausing, co-founder of Lund Trust, said: “The Sussex Weald has been our family’s home for the last four decades – we love this ancient, small-scale farming landscape. We are delighted to support good ideas for practical work to make the High Weald even more green and more beautiful, and thus inspire us all to care for it sensitively and gently.”

Recognised as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the High Weald is an exceptional medieval landscape with a wealth of wildlife and historic features that provide a strong sense of place, enrich lives and inspire community pride.

SUSSEX LUND WILL RE-OPEN FOR NEW APPLICATIONS IN EARLY 2019. Potential applicants must discuss their proposal at an early stage with the High Weald team on 01424 723014 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, councils, farmers and landowners. For more information on Sussex Lund and the application criteria, download the guidance documents from the website: www.highweald.org/downloads/publications/project-reports/sussex-lund.html or visit the dedicated web page: www.highweald.org/look-after/sussex-lund.html

Pictured: Hedge laying at Mark Cross

 Sussex Lund 2018 Grant Recipients 

 Organisation

Area

Project Summary 

Grant Offer 

Ashburnham Christian Trust

Ashburnham

Surfacing of 200m of lakeside path to enable year round access and the purchase of 4 ‘moveable walls’ to enable large scale compost management. 

£10,000

Battle Town Council

Battle

Surfacing of a well-used path through a woodland shaw and piloting of a new cutting regime for adjacent amenity grassland to develop greater habitat diversity. 

£10,000

Battle Wood

Mountfield

Non-native species removal and bracken control within a 5 hectare wood.

£4,750

Brightside Farm

Cranbrook

Laying and gapping-up of 63m of a historic hedgerow alongside a well-used footpath with coppicing of adjacent copse. 

£1,543

Church Farm

Newenden

Hedge-laying 140m of a hedge adjacent to a footpath and around two sides of a large garden that extends into surrounding fields.

£2,100

Cross in Hand Amenities Society

Cross in Hand

Treatment of invasive species and specialist support for management of a community woodland. 

£3,400

Crossing Gate

Forest Row

Planting of a 129m hedge along a new boundary close to the Forest Way.

£3,520

Crowborough Town Council

Crowborough

Creation of a pond and dipping platform within Crowborough’s new pocket park.

£3,900

Dallington Forest Project

Dallington

Specialist tree management and invertebrate surveys of an ancient woodland site with a significant population of ancient trees. 

£4,205

Education Futures Trust

Hastings

Creation of a ‘secret garden’ as the first stage of an ambitious project to restore The Firs, a semi-derelict site within Hastings, to a therapeutic and outdoor learning facility. 

£10,000

EU ECOHUB CUC

Hellingly

Creation of stone pathways, an orchard and wildflower beds and management of wildflower meadows. 

£4,940

Five Ashes Village Hall and Memorial Playing Field Committee

Five Ashes

Planting of 21 standard native trees and shrubs to increase diversity around the recreation ground and provide a tree identification tool for the local community, including the primary school. 

£1,056

Friends of Bewl Water Bird Hide

Bewl Water

Community refurbishment of a popular bird hide which overlooks the wildlife sanctuary at Bewl Water reservoir.

£3,000 

Organisation

Area

Project Summary 

Grant Offer 

Grist Wood

Peasmarsh

Hedge-laying and gapping up of 150 metres of a historic boundary running alongside a wood and rural lane.

£2,624

Groombridge Sports Ground Association

Groombridge

Hedgerow planting to screen parked cars from the wider landscape. 

£535

Hands of Hope Charity

Hawkhurst

Habitat surveys and access improvements to a new food-focused community hub being developed within a derelict walled garden. 

£3,054

Jessops Farm

Wadhurst

Laying of 65m of hedge along a woodland boundary and deer management training. 

£1,687

Kent High Weald Partnership – Crane Valley 

Cranbrook

Access improvements to a town nature reserve involving 60m of boardwalk improvements, new steps and two benches made from locally-sourced timber. 

£9,140

Kent Wildlife Trust – Brenchley & Cinderhill

Brenchley

Creation of underground (and vandal proof) water storage to ensure continued grazing of heathland within a popular local wildlife site.

£7,867

Lamberhurst Parish Council 

Hook Green

Equipment to enable volunteer management of community greenspace; bracken management within a woodland glade.

£2,425

London Youth

Wych Cross

Installation of deer exclosures to accelerate woodland establishment following rhododendron removal.

£3,721

Nightingale Farm

Maynards Green

Laying and planting 220m of hedgerow along an historic routeway used as a public road.

£7,910

Orchard Farm

Robertsbridge

Hedge-laying of 200m of historic boundary alongside a rural lane and re-instatement, through planting, of 120 metres of a remnant hedgerow alongside a public footpath.

£8,496

Penshurst Wood

Battle

Contribution towards the costs of a pond survey and management plan. 

£600

Rotherfield Millenium Green Trust

Rotherfield

Resurfacing of 120m of boardwalk in the village’s Millennium Green to improve safety.

£3,138

Rotherfield Parish Council

Rotherfield

Installation of a new access gate and two oak benches to enable access to and appreciation of the cemetery; creation of a compost area to enable a more wildlife-friendly cutting regime.

£4,264

RSPB – Forewood

Crowhurst

Tools and training for conservation interns and volunteers, and information panels and way marking posts to improve the visitor experience. 

£1,250 

Organisation

Area

Project Summary 

Grant Offer 

Sacred Earth Community Benefit Society

Marle Green

Planting of hazel cobnut trees and hazel whips to increase Dormouse habitat; haloing of oak standards to improve tree health.

£9,766

Species Recovery Trust

Flimwell

Surveying, management and monitoring of a rare species, Heath Lobelia, in a woodland site undergoing development and restoration. 

£3,750

Sussex Wildlife Trust – Marline Valley

Hastings

Equipment to build volunteer capacity to manage species-rich grassland within a 44 hectare reserve on the edge of Hastings.

£5,629

The Conservators of Ashdown Forest

Wych Cross

Equipment to make it easier, and less costly, to transport cattle essential to the grazing, and therefore health, of Ashdown Forest’s heath and the species-rich grassland at Wakehurst Place.

£8,000

The Pages Farm Partnership

Mayfield

Removal of non-native cypress trees; replacement of the barbed wire fence with post and rail fencing around a pond adjacent to a public footpath. 

£1,088

Trottenden Farm

Goudhurst

Hedge-laying and chainsaw training to allow the owners to manage the farm hedges and coppice some trees around a pond.

£1,605

Vane Wood

Groombridge

Bird boxes for a 5 acre woodland.

£423

Vitality Villages

Herstmonceux

Tools and materials for replacing five traditional step-over stiles with kissing gates, working in partnership with the local ‘Men’s Shed’.

£2,591

TOTAL:

£151,977