Amber Valley National Landscape Campaign
Campaign to recognise Derbyshire's beautiful Amber Valley as one of our Nations key National Landscape areas. This designation will be familiar to many as an Area of Outstanding National Beauty until later 2023 when they were redesigned to reflect their critical importance. Keep coming back as we develop this site and the campaign!
How You Can Help
The Campaign...
Welcome to the Amber Valley National Landscape Campaign, a movement dedicated to preserving the natural beauty and heritage of the Amber Valley in Derbyshire. Join us in our efforts as we endeavour to work with local authorities and Natural England to protect these stunning landscapes for generations to come. Residents, businesses, and all interested individuals in and around the area are invited to be a part of this crucial campaign to safeguard the beauty and essence of the Amber Valley.
Our Derbyshire landscapes, particularly the Amber Valley, are an important buffer zone for the Peak District National Park and the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site, all of which are coming under increasing development pressure. The Amber Valley has stunning vistas from multiple locations and provides the green lungs for towns such as Ripley, Alfreton, Clay Cross, Wingerworth and Chesterfield to the east. Increasing development pressures in recent years have seen expansions of villages and hamlets like South Wingfield, Wessington, Toadhole Furnace, Brackenfield, Alton and Ashover, in some instances seeing village populations almost doubling over the last decade or so. Now, with pressures of potential National Grid pylons, changes to National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and new housing targets upon an already constrained county, where very likely minimised planning impacts on the protected Peak District will push those targets and numbers further out, cherished landscapes like the Amber Valley will face pressures like never before, unless we work together to do something about it.
In the East Midlands there are currently no National Landscape areas or AONBs and we believe that the Amber Valley, from it's confluence at the River Derwent in Ambergate through to where it rises above Ashover village capturing villages such as South Wingfield, Pentrich, Buckland Hollow, Handley, parts of Shirland and Hallfieldgate to provide an essential buffer for the Amber Valley, is worthy of designation as a National Landscape.
Here's how you can help: drop us an email, pledge your support for the designation of the Amber Valley as a National Landscape. We'll add you to our email list and ensure you're kept in the loop, and be ready to show your support in other ways if called upon. If you're a local business based here then let us know how the designation could have a positive effect upon your business for example. If you have concerns please don't be afraid to ask, we're here to ensure that any concerns can be allayed.
That's all we're asking for now. There are other ways to help described below...
1.
Join Our Campaign
Get in touch with us to see how you can support our campaign, we need to hear from you and capture your views. Do you agree the Amber Valley should be designated a National Landscape?
If you're a Parish council can you pledge your support to this campaign?
2.
Creative Campaigns
Help us by capturing the stunning landscapes, historic environment and ecology of the beautiful Amber Valley.
Send us your photos and the permission to use them. Why do you think the AV is so special? We're also interested in any literary references too.
3.
Special Skills
Do you have a skillset that could be useful to our campaign? We'd love to hear from you if you could contribute in any way towards helping get this important designation for the Amber Valley. Environmental sciences like geology, ecology and archaeology are key skills useful to the campaign.
4.
Become a Campaign Member or Supporter
By registering your support you are showing English Nature and the government that you believe that this important landscape and place should be designated as a National Landscape Area, a designation just below a National Park.
About
Capturing Essence
As a campaign to get the Amber Valley listed as a National Landscape designated area, we need to explain why the valley should be designated, provide evidence, and secure the support of local authorities. Join us in the Amber Valley National Landscape Campaign to preserve and promote the natural beauty of the area for the benefit of residents, businesses, and all those who cherish this unique landscape in Derbyshire. Let's work together to protect and celebrate Amber Valley! We need your help and support.
Campaign
Protecting and Conserving Amber Valley Landscapes...
We aim to conserve and protect the breathtaking beauty of the Amber Valley, to get the recognition that it deserves both as a beautiful landscape area in its own right and as an important buffer zone to the Peak District National Park and highlight its important links to the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site. The Amber Valley is a unique confluence of geology, soils, habitats and human cultural landscapes writ large, yet beautifully, upon this Derbyshire landscape over millennia. Photography, words and art images that describe why this landscape is so important will help us achieve this critical designation. To do that we need to capture, record and tell the story of this living, working and breathing landscape, in order to bring awareness to a much wider audience why this beautiful place is worthy of this National Landscape designation.
