Tories ‘dragging their heels’ over plan to join up two national parks

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/30/national-parks-join-plan

Version 0 of 1.

Fifty years after he first contemplated it, the view across the Lyth valley still makes Brian Harrison’s spine tingle. “When you see it first thing in the morning – wow!” said the 60-year-old Cumbrian sheep farmer. “It’ll be grand to have it properly protected.”

Government officials are evaluating whether the vista from Harrison’s Park End Farm, just over the eastern border of the national park, does indeed merit special treatment.

The farm is part of a package of proposed extensions to national parks in England that would also connect two of the UK’s most cherished landscapes, the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales, creating a corridor of protection for the whalebacked Howgills, the limestone plateau of Orton Fells and the “lost” valley of Mallerstang. The Lake District extension includes Firbank Fell, an important area for the Quaker movement because it is where its founder, George Fox, preached.

National parks are subject to particularly strict planning laws, with the national park itself the sole local planning authority responsible for decisions within its boundary. National parks are recognised as “protected areas” by the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act. Each park authority aims to balance the long-term conservation of nature with benefiting visitors and those who live within the park.

Following a public inquiry into the proposals two years ago, an inspector’s report containing recommendations was handed to Westminster, with an announcement expected shortly after.

But what advocates assumed would be a straightforward exercise has mysteriously hit the buffers. For nearly two years, the government has sat on the report without making a decision.

Campaigners claim that requests for an explanation for the delay are routinely fobbed off. The official government response is that a decision will materialise “in due course”. Last week the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) refused to say whether a decision would be reached this summer, or even this year.

“We can’t quite fathom why this decision is not coming through; we’ve asked formally, informally and we cannot get an answer as to who or where the blockage is,” said Douglas Chalmers, director of the charity Friends of the Lake District, which is driving the campaign, called “Lakes 2 Dales”. The ultimate fate of the plan rests with environment secretary Liz Truss, who has yet to make an official visit to either national park.

The result is that swaths of northern Britain remain in limbo, unsure of future planning policies and the potential repercussions for jobs and property prices. Bafflement over the delay has steadily evolved into a widely held concern among campaigners that the government should not be trusted as custodian of the countryside. Since 2010, funding for the UK’s national parks has been cut. In the Lake District, the budget has been slashed from £7.3m to £4.5m, a 38% drop over five years. Plots of prized land have been put up for sale to help balance the books.

Nationally, campaigners point to cuts of up to 40% in real terms, with more expected. The Yorkshire Dales national park has scrapped education and public transport programmes, downgraded conservation projects and sold its information centre at Sedbergh. Monday July 27 marks the start of National Parks Week, an annual celebration of “Britain’s breathing spaces”. Campaigners complain that the scale of the cuts appears to challenge pledges within the Tories’ latest manifesto, which promises to “put in place stronger protections for our natural landscapes … so that this remains the most beautiful country in the world.”

Chalmers said: “What could be a stronger protection than to designate something as a national park?” Ruth Bradshaw, of the Campaign for National Parks, is worried that relaxation of planning laws could be the thin end of the wedge: “We have concerns with the latest announcements on planning reforms, potentially relaxing the rules on planning for mobile masts in protected areas. We are also worried about the emphasis on economic growth.” Conservationists also argue that there would be an economic dividend from protecting treasured landscapes. “They are missing a trick. There are significant economic benefits from protecting landscape, a huge multiplier between the investment and the money brought into the more remote and emptier parts of the country,” said Chalmers.

An unspoilt area known as “the other Borrowdale”, north of Kendal, has suffered depopulation and abandonment of property in recent years, but the adjoining Lake District national park attracts 16.4 million visitors a year, who spend £1,146m – £350m more than the annual budget for the entire county of Cumbria.

More than 90% of those affected by the plans support the extension to the park, according to campaigners. Yet in the Cumbrian village of Brigsteer, just up the lane from Harrison’s farm, which would be included within an enlarged park, some residents questioned if it was worth the hassle.

Peter Lord, 87, who has lived in Brigsteer since 1986 and whose home was partly built from driftwood that floated up the Lyth valley in the 16th century, said: “I am completely indifferent. The national park brings a lot of extra regulations: you can get a lot of problems with planning applications. Outsiders wanting to redevelop will be none too happy with that.”

Nicki Drury, 50, who works at the village pub, the Wheatsheaf, agreed: “It wouldn’t make a jot of difference. I already consider us part of the Lake District; we’re included in all the guidebooks.” Arguments that it might increase tourism are dismissed; the pub’s accommodation, the Bunkhouse, is fully booked until 2016. In the beer garden, a delegation from Lytham St Annes in Lancashire rhapsodised over the scenery. “It’s hard to imagine what improvements you could make to a place like this,” said Jennifer Pickett, 67.

For Chalmers it’s more about preserving what exists. Some areas that failed to secure postwar national park status have deteriorated to the stage that they can no longer be considered. Many are hoping such a fate will not befall the Lyth valley and an upland corridor between Cumbria and North Yorkshire.