Pennine Prospects

Welcome To The South Pennines...

The South Pennines Heritage Area sits between the major city regions of Leeds and Manchester to the east and west and the Yorkshire Dales and Peak District National Parks to the north and south. Seven million people live within an hour’s drive of the South Pennines – and the area offers huge opportunities for healthy living and the enjoyment of its internationally important wildlife and heritage.

The landscape is one of stark contrasts: vast tracts of open moorland intersected by steep, wooded valleys; the areas in between softened by a subtle patchwork of hamlets and fields. The landscape today is a combined result of geology and human endeavour – enabling the visitor to trace the history of the South Pennines from the ice age to the industrial revolution.

The South Pennines area is the only upland landscape in England not to have been recommended as a designated landscape – such as National Park or Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) – with the added protection and resources that this brings.

Future economic and cultural prosperity depends upon protecting and valuing the past whilst finding new ways to create a ‘living landscape’ for the 21st century. This is the reason for the creation of Pennine Prospects.

Over the last year Pennine Prospects has secured nearly £ 5 M for heritage, landscape and community projects. Join us here in the South Pennines.