A COALITION of 30 groups behind an ambitious plan to preserve and highlight the impact industrialisation had on the North York Moors is set to learn if it has landed £3m to bankroll the scheme.

Leaders of the project, titled This Exploited Land, said they were optimistic about securing the funding next month, following a "very positive" site visit to Rosedale, Danby and Blakey Ridge with Heritage Lottery bosses last week.

With permission for numerous projects having been granted by landowners, if the application is successful, work on conservation schemes will start in late spring.

Bodies backing the project, which will also celebrate the early stages of the ironstone industry in the moors and introduce natural environment improvements, include North York Moors National Park Authority, English Heritage and Natural England and local history societies.

Key elements 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.

It would also chart and conserve the fragile remains of the early development of railways on the moors, spanning from 1830 to the closure of the Rosedale Railway in 1929.

The funding application, which was given initial approval in 2013, has taken to two years to prepare and includes archaeological and engineering surveys of key heritage sites, such as the Rosedale mines.

Dr Louise Cooke, the park authority's heritage officer, said other submitted studies included ones to identify wildlife, woodlands and watercourses and surveys to find out why people visited the area.

She added This Exploited Land would present an opportunity to present the story of the area's landscape for the first time.

She said: "The area also has a distinctive identity based upon the sense of discovery and the shock of knowing that these now natural places were sites of extraordinary industrial expansion, and just as rapid industrial retraction.

"The feeling of remoteness experienced on the upland moor is challenged by the knowledge that a railway ran high across Farndale and Baysdale moors and linked Rosedale beyond the Cleveland Hills to Ferryhill in County Durham."

Dr Cooke said those behind the application had strived to highlight the historic connections between Rosedale, Grosmont, Kildale and Danby, which are not obvious due to the topography and modern-day road network.

She said: "There are also important connections outside the This Exploited Land area to Teesside, Middlesbrough and Redcar which later became the focus for the iron industries of the North-East."