Aggregates Levy Fund celebrates almost £30m awarded to heritage and environment

Submitted by PaulM on Thursday, 16 October 2003 Page Views: 1743

Elliot Morley MP, Minister of Environment and Agri-environment was a special guest today at the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund (ALSF) Milestone Event, held at the Museum of London. The event was staged to acknowledge the distribution £29.3 million of grants by English Heritage, English Nature and The Countryside Agency under the ALSF banner in under two years. These grants have helped finance ambitious environment, heritage and access projects across the country.

The Aggregate Levy Sustainability Fund (ALSF) is financed by revenue raised by The Aggregates Levy. This levy was introduced by the Finance Act 2001 and came into force on 1 April 2002. The levy is a tax on the extraction of aggregates, such as sand, stone and gravel used in construction, which is then used to bring about environmental benefits that mitigate the damage such extraction might cause.

The event saw the presentation of the main projects that have been funded by the ALSF to Elliot Morley MP. Also present were Dr Edward Impey, Director of Research and Standards, English Heritage, Richard Wakeford, Chief Executive of The Countryside Agency and Andy Brown, Chief Executive of English Nature and members of the aggregates industry, the environment and heritage sectors and various universities who have benefited from the scheme.

The first two years of the ALSF has confirmed that there is a strong demand from voluntary, community, research and public bodies to undertake projects whose scope and size falls outside the remit of other existing grant funds. All ALSF grants have been made to projects and areas which have been affected by past and present aggregates extraction.

The Museum of London, which hosted the event, is itself a recipient of a £303,00 ALSF grant which has enabled it to develop the important new London Before London gallery, where finds made during aggregates extraction are displayed.

The ALSF grants scheme is now waiting an announcement on whether the Government will sanction the Fund to continue beyond its first two years. The decision is due to be announced in the Chancellor's Pre-Budget Report in November 2004.

Among the numerous schemes funded by ALSF money and presented at the Milestone Event were:

ENGLISH HERITAGE:

Alderley Sandhills

£182,000 has funded this project by the University of Manchester who have been studying cottages at Alderley Edge, Cheshire, which were occupied from the 1740s to the 1950s. The area was later heavily quarried for sand. The project is combining excavation of the cottages with the memories of the surviving occupants to gain a better understanding of how the buildings were used and what life there was like in the first half of the 20th century. The site was made accessible to the public through site visits and a web site, and a popular publication is planned.

Multibeam swath bathymetry sea floor archaeology studies

Two projects, which use advanced underwater survey technique's have also received £454,000 to map the submerged valley of the palaeo-Arun river off the Sussex coast. The new work, building on previous research by marine aggregates extraction companies, will help researchers from Imperial College London to identify likely sites of early prehistoric occupation within this drowned landscape.

ENGLISH NATURE:

Ice Age woolly rhino

£15,000 helped Birmingham University experts excavate a partial skeleton at Whitemoor Haye Quarry, Staffordshire. Further funding uncovered three more rhino skulls and remains of mammoth, horse, reindeer and wolf.

Rye Harbour Nature Reserve

£200,000 was used to introduce a new method of deterring predators, doubling the numbers of young waders and terns that were reared this breeding season on the internationally important site. Improved public access to the reserve was another of the project's achievements.

COUNTRYSIDE AGENCY:

Poole's Cavern

£59,932 was given as a 75% grant to help Buxton and District Civic Association to provide access for all to this cave in Derbyshire. There will be access to the cave for wheelchair users, remote-controlled cameras to enable those in the visitor centre to follow the progress of family and friends in the cave, and audio interpretation of the guided tour for the hard of hearing.

Croft, Leicestershire

A £56,000 grant has enabled Croft Parish Council to establish a new playground for village children next to a quarry that extracts more than three million tonnes of crushed rock annually.

Source: English Heritage/ Countryside Agency/ English Nature Press Release 16/10/2003

Contributor Bio for PaulM: Based in Macclesfield, contributing since 2002. Favourite site: Hordron Edge. Occupation: Something in waste and recycling.

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