South Downs National Park: Funding boost for chalk grassland restoration

Rare chalk grassland is to be restored with the help of a £2m grant, the National Trust says.

Restoration of the ancient landscape on the South Downs will be funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Some 18 schemes, including returning 60 hectares (150 acres) of golf course to downland will go ahead over four years.

There will be community projects to access green space, and an archaeology project to get people digging for history, the National Trust said.

A quarter of South Downs National Park, which stretches from Winchester in Hampshire to Eastbourne in East Sussex, is made up of woods, heaths, ponds and nature reserves.

Intensive agriculture and the loss of traditional grazing has led to a reduction in the rare chalk grassland by four-fifths, leaving remaining sites small and isolated, and their wildlife threatened.

A partnership of 10 organisations will work with communities, farmers, landowners and vineyards to provide jobs, apprenticeships and training in Brighton, Hove, Eastbourne and Lewes, as well as new skills for around 2,500 volunteers, the trust said.

Richard Henderson, assistant director at the National Trust and chair of the partnership, said: "The need to connect nature, people and heritage has never felt more important or relevant.

"The project has an amazing cross-section of activities that will protect and restore the South Downs landscape for people to enjoy, for health and well-being, for nature's recovery and climate resilience into the future."

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