We have the ambition to launch the South Pennines Park jointly with all our partners and stakeholders in 2021.
In the 1940s, unlike designated National parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the South Pennines missed out on receiving protection and funding as a designated park because it was too industrial. The South Pennines is the only undesignated upland landscape in the country and, if you have visited the area, you will know it is stunning – a wild, wonderful and occasionally wuthering landscape at the place where Yorkshire and Lancashire collide.
The Park covers over 420miles², it is home to over 660,000 people and easily accessible to over eight million more from the surrounding city regions of Leeds, Manchester and East Lancashire. This unique landscape has one of the country’s highest proportions of nature designations, boasting two Special Areas of Conservation and 15 Sites of Special Scientific Interest, plus 2,600 miles of rights of way, including two national trails and the Pennine Bridleway


