An £11.6m funding boost from The National Lottery Heritage Fund has been awarded to Plymouth to help deliver the UK’s first National Marine Park – a transformation programme that will help empower and engage the city in the marine environment.

Previously, a grant of £9.5m from the National Lottery Heritage Fund was confirmed, and now a funding boost of £2.1m was awarded Plymouth City Council by the fund for the project at Plymouth Sound. The total cost of the scheme is said to be £22m, with the remaining funds yet to be secured.

Photo: Brian Aitkenhead

The National Marine Park will encourage people to become ‘Marine Citizens’, developing closer connections with the ocean, learning to care about our coastal environment and change the way we behave in order to protect it. Importantly the Park is permissive and not regulatory.

A series of sensitive restoration projects across the citywide waterfront will enable greater accessibility to Plymouth Sound National Marine Park. These developments will open up new ‘gateways’ to the National Marine Park through previously inaccessible heritage sites, including the 17th century Mount Batten Tower and Garden Battery at Mount Edgcumbe, which has been closed to the public since World War 2.

Furthermore, a pioneering nature boost project will restore habitats and species including sea grass beds, mudflats and saltmarshes, oysters, mussels, little egrets, avocets thornback ray, seahorses, sand eels and the rare allis shad.

The ‘Digital Marine Park’ will bring to life the amazing heritage of Plymouth Sound – providing an inclusive and accessible online platform and open up the UK’s first National Marine Park to a global audience.

Elaine Hayes, Plymouth Sound National Marine Park CEO, said: “The climate is changing and we can do lots for nature. This project will spend over £1,000,000 on nature. But we need everybody within the city to get involved, to make those little changes that will make a difference to our planet.”

Roger Maslin, CEO of Ocean Conservation Trust, said: “We sincerely hope that this will be the first of many National Marine Parks around the UK’s coastline and are now thrilled to be embarking on the next exciting chapter of this journey’’.

For more information visit the marine park website here.