AN ambitious project to create Dorset’s first urban Living Landscape has received a funding boost of £85,900 from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Inspired by a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to save some of the most threatened wild landscapes in the county, Dorset Wildlife Trust, conservationists and the community are joining forces to launch Wildlink.

A major Living Landscape around urban Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch, the kickstart to the Wildlink project is the purchase of 1,435 acres of land offered for sale by the Canford Estate.

DWT has formed a consortium to buy the land which includes internationally important grassland, saltmarsh and reedbeds, ancient woodland and important grassland, with the intention of improving access for people as well as ensuring protection of outstanding wildlife.

The Wildlink project aims to build on this to promote the management of a much wider linking area from the New Forest National Park to the Wild Purbeck Nature Improvement Area.

“This is the first time that such a group has come together for the greater good of the whole area and, thanks to this funding, the partnership will be the core of the even more ambitious aim of benefitting all the land that surrounds these sites, with increased co-operation and increased involvement by local people in looking after and discovering their natural heritage,” said Brian Bleese, director of operations and development at DWT.

“We are committed to improving access for people to their fantastic natural heritage and securing it for future generations.”

Richard Bellamy, head of heritage lottery fund south west said: “The project covers an amazing range of key habitats and in terms of biodiversity ticks lots of boxes.

“The Heritage Lottery Fund is pleased to be supporting Dorset Wildlife Trust’s initial plans to protect an important network of sites with the aim of securing their long term managers and encouraging surrounding urban communities to get more involved with the natural heritage right on their doorstep.”

The land for sale includes part of Upton Heath, land at Ferndown and Parley Common, woodland and heath in Corfe Mullen and Poole and shoreline and harbour at Holes and Lytchett Bays.

Consortium partners have contributed a seven figure sum and a major local and national appeal will be launched in the spring to raise the remaining £500,000, which has to be found in a year.