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John Parker - my LHI story
from DCA Community News magazine
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John Parker - my LHI story
Location: Dorset
John Parker is Project Leader for the Swans Trust, a community development trust set up to enhance the local community and Shaftesbury as a place to live.
The Hangings Project, ‘Exploring and Enhancing Shaftesbury’s Famous Hillsides’, started off because we wanted to organise a more consistent and more sustainable management of two of our rather special open spaces, The Abbey Park and Castle Hill.
We aimed to enlarge on the work the Dorset Countryside Rangers had already started on Castle Hill, so that both sites would become more of an asset to the town.
We felt that before we decided exactly what we wanted to do, we needed to thoroughly research what is already there, so that any new plan for management or, for example, new pathways, didn’t disturb or mess up anything valuable.
So we did a study of The Park, which actually developed into a wider look into the heritage of the old town - the history, the archaeology, the geology, and how that geology influenced the development of the area and was used by local industry and building. Then a study of the old buildings in the town and how they used the old materials and vernacular designs of the area.
And finally we commissioned someone to do a management plan for The Park, and suggest how we could sustain its ecology. The LHI scheme has paid for experts in ecology and management of the open space, but the architect, the geologist and the archaeologist are all volunteers, and I wrote several bits of the report myself - I used to be a landscape architect and manager.
As a result, we’re proposing a series of Heritage Trails that will link these two bits of public open space in a series of footpath walks, with leaflets that will show both residents and visitors what’s interesting in the town.
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