A PARTNERSHIP set up to help Gwynedd slate communities benefit from their World Heritage Site status is celebrating after a successful bid to secure £2million for their work.

An award of £1.7m from the Lottery Heritage Fund, along with additional contributions from other organisations, will finance an new project, LleCHI LleNI, until the summer of 2029.

This project, aimed at celebrating and raising awareness of the World Heritage Site’s slate heritage, delivered by Welsh Slate Partnership, will include a wide-ranging programme of activities including:

  • Outdoor activities.
  • Creative and cultural sessions.
  • Community research.
  • Activities to safeguard heritage.

All this is a key part of the World Heritage Site’s wider effort to bring the people of quarrying communities together and maximise the potential of the status to boost economic and social regeneration, and improve communities across Gwynedd.

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“This massive financial boost is great news to the slate communities and everyone who lives in them,” said Lord Dafydd Wigley, chairman of the Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales World Heritage Site Partnership Board.

“The success we had with this bid is thanks to many years of tireless efforts by individuals and organisations to gain the World Heritage Site status.

“It really does show that the status benefits all of us, and what is important is that we seek every possible avenue of support for our communities so they can maximise the opportunities that it may bring.”

The project will also celebrate the significance of the Welsh language in the history of the slate industry and in the towns and villages that grew around it.

Another key element in the LleCHI LleNI project’s mission will be to ensure the inclusion of all people in society, with a special effort to enage with specific groups that are sometimes harder to reach.

These groups include older and vulnerable people, people with disabilities, young families, LGBTQ+ people and young people facing homelessness.

Although LleCHI LleNI is only just beginning, a wide-ranging programme of activities have already been planned and organised, including:

  • Grants – the Cist Gwynedd Community Chest small grants team will administer a scheme to enable community groups to run their own heritage projects to encourage pride in heritage, well-being and skills development.
  • Travelling exhibition and interpretation work – working in partnership to create travelling exhibitions in community spaces, including community artefacts and stories.
  • Guided walks and well-being activities to link different audiences and the World Heritage Site, its landscape and biodiversity. They will include raising awareness of placenames, and vegetation clearance sessions to encourage local biodiversity to prosper.
  • Activities to safeguard the Site – sessions to highlight the importance of the site and its conservation, with the Gwynedd Archaeological Trust leading community conservation activities to safeguard, record and interpret information for graveyards in the World Heritage Site.
  • Artwork – members of the local community working with a slate carver to select words that represent the Site’s heritage to etch onto slate.
  • Performances – Plays and music performances based on quarrying culture.
  • Local history – The project will interview people who used to work in the quarries and to lived beside them in the 1980s and explore the role of women. Examples of quarrying humour will be gathered.
  • Young ambassadors – Children of secondary school age will learn about slate heritage, develop skills, have social opportunities, and have a voice in the management of the World Heritage Site.
  • Traditional skills – working in partnership to develop traditional skills locally.