Developing a Food Atlas of the Seascape: Connecting with stakeholders and communities through heritage stories

We detail the production of the innovative ‘FoodScapes Atlas’; a publicdirected digital, shareable resource with spatially-referenced stories of food and landscapes springing from the Tyne to Tees, Shores and Seas Landscape Partnership in the North East of England. The project’s foundations were previous coast projects, and the European Landscape Convention (ELC). The paper poses the question: ‘How does the Foodscape Atlas respond to the letter and spirit of the ELC? We discuss how local heritage stories, linking research on landscape and food, have been used to reveal landscape values and reflect a sense of place in communities living on, or close to, this post-industrial coastline. We reflect on how, in bringing to light hidden, forgotten or overlooked stories with current research, project-generated understandings and considerations of landscape futures, presented in a novel format, we contributed to partnership collaborations using the legacy of the ELC as both inspiration and practical guidance.