A COALITION of 30 groups, ranging from English Heritage and Natural England to local history societies, will learn late next year if lottery bosses approve its action plan to highlight the impact an explosion of industrialisation had on the North York Moors.

Heritage and environmental champions say they are determined to secure a £3m Heritage Lottery Fund grant to highlight the national and international significance of Rosedale and the Esk Valley.

Leaders of the project, titled This Exploited Lane, have revealed a key element of the project would see the recreation of the pre-Victorian ecosystem and teams of volunteers being trained to conserve 90m-long ironstone kilns built close to the ironstone mines at Rosedale.

The kilns entered English Heritage's Heritage At Risk register earlier this year as a high priority, after what it described as a major collapse, while residents say they have been degrading for many years.

Stephen Croft, of North York Moors National Park Authority, said the structures, were key to a story, parts of which have never been told, which he hoped would capture the public imagination.

He said the kilns could never be rebuilt, but by spending about £1m conserving them they would remain landmark features in the area for generations to come.

Mr Croft said: "We need to point them up and reinforce them, tying structures together using expanding stainless steel fixings, to stop some of the elements cracking, sliding and falling away.

"Farmers have used the stone to build walls, the kilns have been used as a quarry since the 1930s when they closed.

"We are keen to preserve the structures, but the really important thing is to tell the story, so when people from Teesside, Darlington and others parts of County Durham come here they can see where and why it all started."

While the project will celebrate the early stages of the ironstone industry in the moors, from the 1830s, at the height of its production between 1873 and 1914, about 19 per cent of the world’s demand for iron came from the Cleveland Hills and the North York Moors.

Mr Croft said: "Rosedale village and the surrounding area now has about 400 residents, but at the height of the ironstone industry there it 2,500 people living there who had to be accomodated.

"There was a lot of speculation and people came in and struck a claim on the local area, some making a fortune, some losing a fortune.

"It was like a mini Klondike, people arrived in their thousands from all over the country and eeked out a living.

"Some of the kilns would have been going 24 hours a day to semi-refine ironstone, millions of tonnes of which was exported by the railway across the moors to Teesside."

The group has nearly completed surveying of all the built monuments in the area, including an an ironstone mine site near Grosmont which is hopes to open to the public.

It has found all the original bridge structures are in place on the original route of 1836 George Stevenson railway between Goathland and Grosmont and is examining structures remaining from the support industries running along the Esk.

If lottery bosses give the five-year scheme, which would start in 2016, the go-ahead, about £1m will be used to manage the programme, create a gallery to display exhibits, signage and launching volunteer and apprenticeship schemes and about £1m on natural environment improvements to a 200sq km area.

The project has identified gaps in ecologically significant habitats, partly caused by industralisation, so the main focus will be to improve their quality and extent.

This would include removing barriers to migratory fish along the River Esk to benefit salmon and sea trout which, in turn, would benefit the endangered freshwater pearl mussel population by providing more fish hosts at their larval stage.

Linda Chambers, a member of the executive group for the project and secretary of the Rosedale History Society, said: "We feel very lucky to have been given this important opportunity to focus attention on our nationally important ironstone mining and processing area, and hope to benefit from part of the £3 million Heritage Lottery Fund award which covers Rosedale and the Esk Valley.

"Our dale is very beautiful and remote, but we increasingly rely on visitors who come to walk and admire the scenery.

"They should beneft from better information, and we hope that our iconic but fragile structures may be secured for the foreseeable future for all to enjoy and admire.

"The aim is to help preserve and secure our impressive. but fragile structures and promote this beautiful area."