Peak District Interpretation Partnership

 

Telling the Peak District Story

The Peak District Interpretation Partnership (PDIP) supports organisations and individuals who are involved in telling the story of the Peak District. Our goal is to help others discover for themselves what make this such a special place. We can offer interpretive expertise and insights, facilitate the creation of new groups from the community sector and elsewhere, and get involved in joint projects.
 

Interpretation

Interpretation…

  • Is the art of explaining what is significant about a place;
  • Helps people understand the forces that created the Peak District environment;
  • Encourages people to look to the future and to think about the impact of current lifestyles.

Interpretive media

Interpretive panels and visitor centres represent one approach to interpretation. In the Peak District the Interpretation Partnership has also supported:

  • Work with communities who live within the Peak District
  • A renewed focus on ‘face to face’ interpretation
  • Art projects, including outdoor sculptures and an event with the Ballet Rambert
PDIP delivers projects and brings people together. We encourage groups to work with others and look beyond their own sites to the wider landscape.
 

Interpretive planning

One starting point for all our work is thinking carefully about what it is we want to communicate, who it is we need to reach, and how this can best be done. This is the process of interpretive planning. The Partnership has been involved with the development of eleven ‘Local Interpretive Plans’, and has also produced an over-arching ‘Peak District Interpretation Strategy’.

Resources  
Since its inception in 1996 the Partnership has acted as a conduit for more than £600,000 of funding,
 
Current priorities
  • Our major project at the moment is ‘Peak Experience’. Working with a wide range of partners, and using funding from the European Regional Development Fund and the East Midlands Development Agency, we are creating a number of ‘Trails’ around the Peak District which will enable people to discover more about the area’s cultural and natural heritage.
  • We recently published a set of four Landscape Interpretation Plans for the four landscape areas which make up the Peak District. These plans provide an authoritative guide to the story of these four landscapes.