The Lough Erne Landscape Partnership (LELP) was delighted to be awarded additional funding of £98,587 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund recently, with the funds extending the current Landscape Partnership scheme until December, 2024.

Alongside additional contributions from the partnership’s funding partners – the RSPB, as lead partner; Fermanagh and Omagh District Council, the National Trust and Waterways Ireland – the funding brings the overall project value to more than £3.4m, in the process directly benefitting the people, nature and heritage of Lough Erne.

The Partnership began with the aim to protect, promote and enhance the unique natural, cultural and built heritage of the region through a planned scheme of 23 local projects in 2018.

Since then, it has also been able to work with the local community to identify and deliver a further 20 projects, with the 43 projects delivering a wide range of outcomes for the district.

The successes of the additional funding and wider achievements of the Partnership, to date, were celebrated on Tuesday, October 18 at The Archdale Centre, Lisnaskea, where the gathering at the hall saw project partners displaying their achievements and information about their projects.

Joanne Sherwood, Director of RSPB NI, thanked the LELP Board, Working Group and Legacy Sub-group for providing excellent support and leadership throughout the delivery of the programme.

Nikki McVeigh, committee member of The National Lottery Heritage Fund in Northern Ireland, said: “We are delighted to be able to offer our continued support to the Lough Erne Landscape Partnership, which thanks to money raised by National Lottery players has been delivering for the people, nature and heritage of Lough Erne.

“Heritage is a great way of bringing people together to create a pride of place. By offering additional support and flexibility, the final phase now has scope to complete heritage projects paused during recent challenging times, resulting in more people becoming involved in local heritage.”

Joanne Sherwood, Director, RSPBNI, as lead partner representative of LELP, said: “We are grateful to The National Lottery Heritage Fund and National Lottery players for the additional support to the LELP programme of works in Fermanagh.

“Over the past four years, the communities of Fermanagh have engaged in a wide-ranging heritage programme, providing exciting opportunities for so many people to learn about and get involved in their local built, natural and cultural heritage.

“We now look forward to the next phase, where we will look to secure an appropriate legacy to build on the successful work that has been completed, to date.”

Elmarie Swanepoel, Programme Manager of the LELP, added: “One of the key strengths of the partnership is the opportunities it brings for the local agencies, organisations and groups to work together, and we are very proud of the now established local networks in place that facilitates different groups creating new partnerships and learning from each other.

“We are very pleased to see the emergence of key strategic opportunities resulting from the work of the partnership, and these will be explored as part of the legacy plans.”

For further information on the partnership, see www.lelp.org.uk.