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fabian tract 456 
national parks 

chapter 1 introduction 1 
2 the present park system 2 
3 problems of the present system 7 
4 the current debate : reports 
and committees 12 
5 proposals 15 
6 summary of main recommendations 24 

the author 
Chris Smith works for a housing association, helping to provide 
sheltered housing for the elderly and disabled. He is a former 
President of the Cambridge Union, Kennedy Scholar at Harvard, 
and Vice-chairman of the Young Fabian Group. A member of the 
Society's Arts, Science and Environment committee, he has 
recently been elected a Labour Councillor in Islington and chief 
whip of the council labour group. 

Having been brought up in Scotland, he is an enthusiastic hill 
walker and has a keen interest in all aspects of countrysidepolicy. 

this pamphlet, like all publications of the Fabian Society, 
represents not the collective view of the Society but only the 
views of the individual who prepared it. The responsibility of 
the Society is limited to approving publications it issues 
as worthy of consideration within the Labour movement. 
Fabian Society, 11 Dartmouth Street, London SW1 H 9BN. 
May 1978 ISSN 0307 7535 ISBN 7163 0456 2 


1. introduction 
The Labour movement has a long and 
impo11tant tradition of concern for our 
counbryside, of campa.i.gnling for our freedom 
to enjoy ·it and to assert that this 
land really is our land, a,fter all. For 
many decades rthis concern was central 
to the Labour party's thinking-to that 
spinit .of irreverence for estaJblished 
priviilege which used to be the hallmark 
of 1ihe party's radicaLism. There were 
meebings of thousands to march against 
the landowners in the Peak ; the ILP used 
to gather f'Dr days of walkiing in the 
Pennines ; and unemployed Clydes!iders 
would flock north\W'rds from Glasgow 
to the hills. It was tin this same spirit that 
<the Lrubour Party's campaign for access 
to and prot:eotion of the count•ryside was 
conceived and waged throughout lhe 
thirties and fortties. 

Nowadays, this concern has gone-as has 
Jthe spir·it of irreverence, and much of Lhe 
radicalism-and the party is immeasurrubly 
the poorer for it. This pamphlet sets 
out, in a small way, to b11ing ·the whole 
issue of the countryside back on t'O the 
poLitical agenda and to reassert j.ts significance 
for a socialtist party. It takes its 
Sltand on a firm and unashamed belief m 
·the value and ·importance of our countryside. 
In an increasing,ly u11banised society,
the freedom and fulfilment offered by 
our open spaces and wilderness a·reas are 
of .the very highest worth. )jt ,js surely one 
of the great tasks of our society, now 
more .than ever, to recognuse rthese values 
and to cherish them. 

These same aims and hopes gave birth 
to the campatign within the LaJbour movemerut 
that led, in 1949, to 1ihe estrublishmeat 
of our system of national parks. 
The intenttion was to give a special level 
of protecttion to those countryside areas 
under the greatest p!1essure---.the most 
beautiful, and vulnerable, pa11ts of our 
.landscape. The demands on our countryside 
are now, in fact, far greater than 
.they were thirty years ago, and the need 
for specti.al prortootion is all the stronger.
It is of.ten supposed thrut a concern for 
'these !issues of countryside poiicy •is an 
exclusively bourgeois interest. Nothingcould be further from the truth. The 
st•ruggle for access, for example, has 

consistenJtly been waged by the working 
class, particularly in the great meetings 
and marches of the thi,rties. The social 
ba·se of recreatlion has now widened even 
further. The hundreds of people who 
ta!ke the train out from Manchester on 
a Sunday morning, who walk the hills 
or climb the gnitstone, who drive their 
families to see ·the scenery, are no social 
elite 1but come from all backgrounds. 

We lin the La.bour movement must wake 
up to the fact that workiag people have 
needs beyond the purely mruterial. As a 
governing party over most of the last 
fifteen years, IWe seem to have lost all 
sense of this. Wirth a few noble exceptions, 
we have concentrated on economic 
needs to the exolusi'On of all else. What 
has become of the bold 'ini.ttiatives in 
social policy to enrich the life of 
ordinary people-in all its a,spects ? 

For a Lrubour Party supposedly commit-
t·ed to the sociai conJtrol of resources 
that are important to the well being of 
the mass of ordinary people, our lack of 
concern a.bout .the counJtryside and ·what 
ha,ppens to it ~s particularly shameful. In 
this area of policy, no ·government of 
any polirtical complexion has really had 
any clear goals in •recent years. There is 
no general diirection ; ideas are canvassed 
for bits of countryside pobicy, hut not 
all ; there are too many different public 
bodies trying t'O do too many different 
but overlapping things ; ·and accompanying 
ithis there has been a bland governmental 
complacency that all is well. 

AU !is not going well. The pressures are 
increasing and the countryside does not 
have sufficient protection. This pamphlet, 
therefore, is-more than anY'thing else-
a plea fm action, in countrystide matters 
in general .and above all in the most 
'beautiful areas where a stronger park 
system is the only safeguard. It sets out to 
describe our existing network of parks 
·and to assess its inadequacies and the 
difficulties confronting any proposals for 
change. The recent and conJtinuing debate 
on the whole :issue will then be discussed. 
Final,ly a series of proposals are advanced 
to demand improvemenJts which a•re :~.11 
too urgently needed. 


2. the present park system 
Nauional parks were first estab1ished in 
Britain under the National Parks and 
Access to the Countryside Act of 1949. 
The major official impetus for tills came 
from a repmt lby John Dower of April 
1945 (Cmd 6627, National Parks in Eng-
Land and Wales, HMSO) followed up in 
the succeeding two years by the Hob-
house Oommilttee, which reported in 1947 
with detailed proposals for the est<lJblishment 
of a na·tional park system in England 
and Wales (Cmd 7121, Report of 
the National Parks Committee, HMSO). 

The definition of ·a N<l1tional P.ark, applied 
to Britain, was g·iven by the Dower 
Report-and accepted by the Hobhouse 
Committee-as: " A na·tlional park is an 
extensive area of beauniful and .relativelywild country in which, for <the nation's 
benefit and lby appropriate nrutUonal 
decision and action, (a) the characteristic 
landscape beauty is st11ictly preserved, (b) 
access and f.aciJities for public open-air 
enjoyment are amply provided, (c) wildlife 
and :buildings .and places of a•rchitectural 
.and histonical interest are suitably 
protected, •While (d) •est<lJblished 
farming use is effectively maintained " 
(quoted in Report of the National Park 
Policies Review Committee " The Sand-
ford Committee", DOE and Welsh Office, 
HMSO, 1974). 

The 1949 Act put these proposals into 
effect, making possible the creaJtlion of 
national parks, wi·th the main purposes of 
preserving their natural beauty and of 
operuing them up Ito people who wished 
to enjoy them, while at the same time 
protecting existing agriculltural uses. The 
Act set up •a Na:ti·onal Parks Commission 
-converted into the Countryside Commission 
1by the 1968 Countryside Act-
which has a wide responsibili-ty f.or 
countryside matters generally and power 
to initiate experimenta:l work, which it 
has done with consideraJble success. The 
Commission ·is also specifically responsible 
for designatUng n<lJtional parks in 
England and Wales, subject to ministerial 
confi·rmation. 

Ten national parks have now been designated 
and confirmed under the 1949 Act. 
Each national park .is :the responsilbility 

NATIONAL PARKS IN ENGLAND 
AND WALES 

area 

design.rution m acres 

confirmed 1972 

Peak District 1951 346,880 
Lake District 1951 554,240 
Snowdonia 1951 540,800 
Dar.tmoor 1951 233,600 
Pembrokeshire CoaJSt 1952 144,000 
North York Moors 1952 353,920 
Yorkshire Dales 1954 435,200Exmoor 1954 169,600 
N orthumiberland 1956 254,720 
Brecon Beacons 1957 332,160 

Source: The Sandford Report, op cit. 

of an execu!Jive board or committee. The 
Peak District and Lake District both 
have separaJte planning boards, while 
each of the other parks comes under a 
national park Committee within the 
structure of Iocal governmenlt. The members 
of all these park authorj.ties are 
appointed ·two thirds by county councils 
one rt:bii·rd by <the Secretary of State. In 
terms of permantent staff employed, the 
Peak District has been particularly fortunrute 
in having had for many years tts 
own staff and director. The other parks 
were previ·ously required to share staff 
w-i.th their overseeing local authorirt:y, but 
now have their own national park officers 
and some independent staff. 

Ministeri<al respons~bility does nort: reallyexist, in full, for the conduct or policyadministration of national parks. Theyf.aH, albeit !tenuously, wi-thin the sphere 
of authority of the Secretary of State for 
the Environment; and there are also 
links with the Department of Agriculture, 
the Departmenrt: of Industry, and the 
Ministers for Sport and for P.J,annring and 
Local Government. With such a diffusion 
of interest true control •rests if anywherewith the local authority in whose area ;:he 
individual park falls. 

The powers of .the park authonities are 
remarkrubly limi-ted. They are chargedw.ith administration ·of existing planning 
procedures within the contexlt of nati-ona-l 
significance •Which the natUonal park has ;
they exercise all the countryside func



tions of local authorities under the 1949 
and 1968 Acts for their area and most 
of the planning functions under the Town 
and Country Planning Act of 1971. Theyhave limited special powers, for the provtision 
of recre<l!tional facilities and ser· 
vices-for ·example, Ito enter into access 
agreements with landowners and failing 
agreement, to make access orders ; to 
provide accommodation, camping sites, 
and car parks ; to provide a warden service 
; and to .acquire land compulsorily 
for speaific recreation purposes. 

ownership 

Design.abion as a n~tional park does not 
alter the ownership of .land within ~he 
area. Most of the land in national parks 
is privately owned and privately controlled. 
But designattion does also 
encourage visitors to think of the pa·rk 
as "theirs "-owned by and for the 
na·tion-although this is in reality not the 
case. This poses one of the greatestproblems at present. Designating a 
national park creates the expectation of 
nabionai ownership and control without 
producing the reality. 

Designllltion does not c o n f e r any 
~dditional rights upon the public, other 
than those specifically negotiated or 
M'ranged by the park authority. Neither 
does ~t provide any definite safeguards 
against intrusive development. As the 
Sandford Report (ibid) puts it, the effect 
of designation .is largely " to define and 
give national significance to the purposesfor which these areas should he plannedand managed." That, effectively, is the 

•entire degree of protection and management 
given to most of our parks. It is 
not enough. 
areas of outstanding 
natural beauty 

In addibion to the network of national 
rarks there are 33 " Areas of Outstanding 
Natural Beauty" (AONB). It is a designation 
conveyin.g that the landscape of 
the area is of nMiona.J importance ; but 
the majority of these areas tend to represent 
a different kind of landscape from 

that of -the national parks, more intensively 
used for agriculture, and less 
immediately suited to recreation. Theydo receive a special level of protection,
although not as complete even as that of 
the parks. Some have a separate committee 
in charge, but in most cases an 
AONB falls fairly directly within the remit 
of local government. 

There must obviously be some areas of 
countryside ·Which are not guarded or 
used as intensively as national parksmight be and yet are worthy of protection, 
under a form such as an AONB. 
At present, however, these areas are the 
most neglected in countryside policy and 
they receive little attention and publicity 
because of their lowly status. The qualityof their -landscape merits better treatment. 


Similar conditions apply to the " Heritage 
Coast "-a •title so far applied to 18 
st-retches of coastline, covering a!bout 
400 miles. Some prionity is given, in 
planning terms, to the landscape values 
of these parts of coast, but the designabion 
is not a statutory one. 

Scotland 

Scotland has no national parks. In this, 
it is almost alone among the developednations ; and indeed, as the CountrysideCommission for Scotland points out in 
its recent pamphlet on a Scottish parksystem, Scotland even lags behind many 
Third World countries in this respect.
This is all the more surprising in a 
count•ry famous for the •beauties of its 
landscape. 

A report on National Parks in Scotland, 
prepared by the Ramsay Committee and 
published in 1945 (Cmd 6631), did 
recommend the crei\Jtion of five national 
parks in Scotland: Loch Lomond and 
the Trossachs, Glen Af'fric, Ben Nevis 
and Glencoe, the Calirngorms, and Torridon 
and Loch Maree. Three further 
areas were suggested as reserves for 
future consideranion. These proposals 
were never implemented, whereas in 
England and Wales progress towards the 


creation of parks, though slow, was 
steady. The reasons for non-implementation 
seem to have been twofold. One is 
that the Ramsay Committee recommended 
that the pa·rks should be 
" owned or controlled by the nation", 
and the idea of public ownership, which 
was again suggested in a report of the 
Scottish National Parks Committee in 
1947, drew more oppos-ition than the 
non-ownership proposals in England and 
Wales. The other reason was that the 
Scottish countryside was thought at the 
time to be in less danger from threats 
df development, and to be less difficult 
of access, than that south of the border. 

Since then, .the pressures on the Scottish 
countryside have grown and they will 
continue to grow, particularly the prob·
lems brought lby oil-related development, 
and commercial activity such as 
at Aviemore. Scotland contains much of 
the most beautiful landscape •in Britain, 
some of it readily accessible from towns 
and cities. It also contains most of our 
last remaining wilderness areas-some of 
the only truly remote tracts of countryside 
far from the roads. There is an 
urgent need to protect these before too 
much enoroachment takes place. 

As fa:r as the question of access goes, at 
·certain times of the year-notably duringthe shooting season~it is often more 
difficult to walk and to wander freelythan it is further south, in England and 
Wales. It is a bitter irony that at the 
moment we rely, for the protection and 
careful use of the Scottish Highlands, on 
the good intentions of private landowners 
-many of them absentee-to preservethe countryside, not for us, but for their 
own sporting purposes. 

Scotland does, of course, have Forest 
Parks (•which a·re quietly providing a 
remarkably good service to visitors) and 
Nature Reserves and National Trust 
land, as in England and Wales. It also 
has five National Park Direction Areas, 
which require special consultation with 
the Secretary of State for Scotland 
before any planning applications for 
development can be appro.ved ; but this 
system has not brought many safeguards 

•in ·reality. There are a number of Areas 
of Great Landscape Value designated by 
·local authorities, although these have no 
.consistent standards right across the 
·country. There is, in addition, an exciting 
new development w h i c h was 
pioneered by Renfrew County Council : 
a regional park of about 45 square miles, 
which (although not permitting public 
access throughout) does prov•ide for 
recreation facilities and maintenance 
of the character of the landscape. A 
similar scheme is being developed for the 
Pentland Hills just outside Edinburgh.
The picture, however, remains a bleak 
one in Scotland and the most sensitive 
areas of all remain especially vulnerable. 
country parks 

The Countryside Act of 1968 provided 
for the setting up of " country parks ·• 
throughout England and Wales; a similar 
pro.vision exists for Scotland under 
the Countryside (Scotland) Act. Country 
parks are smaUer a.reas of land, managed 
for .jntensive and generally gregarious 
recreati·on purposes; so far about 120 
of them have been established. They are 
·complemented, in the provisions of the 
Acts, by the est<l!blishment of " Picnic 
Sites ", which are usually under ten 
hectares (25 acres) in area; at present

•there are around 140 of these. 
Both country parks and picnic sites are 
usually run <by their relevant local 
authorities including, if appropriate, the 
national pa,rk authorities. They are 
designated primarily far recreation ; there 
can be pa·rk!ing viewpoints, offeringpeople simply a chance to stroll or sit; 
or they can include walks, trails, boat·
ing and sporting facilities-places to take 
the family to for a day's enjoyment in 
the open air. Country parks can offer 
ideal goals, too, for excursions by public 
·bransport, laid on specially at weekends, 
and with a diversity of activities available 
at the parks themselves. 

One of the aims of the country oark 
idea is to t·ake recreation pressure off the 
national parks and other vulnerable parts 
of the countryside-to provide within 


ea·sy reach of urban areas places of 
interest and activity to attract the day 
visitor. 

other II public II areas 

There ·are a number of other publicbodies who own land in the countryside 
which are of important relevance to any 
consideration of c o n s e r v a t i o n and 
·recreation. The most outstanding of these 
is probably the Na-tional Trust, partnered 
in Scotland by the National Trust for 
Scotland. Not only do they own ·and run 
monuments and stately homes and pa.rk1lands 
which are prime recreation areas 
but, in addition, they own much of the 
land in many areas of high landscape 
value-such as the Lake District, Glencoe 
or Torridon-and managed it for the 
enhancement of its qualities and for the 
benefit of the public. 

In fact, the work done ·On some Trust 
properties ·in .pioneering and encouraging 
public reareation has frequently shown 
the way for many other organisations.
Most of the land management ideas 
developed by the Trusts have been highly 
successiful. Their work could well serve 
as an example for other countryside and 
park authorities to follow. 

The aims of the Tmsts and of a park 
system run in tandem are the dual purpose 
·of conserving <beauty 'and providing 
opportuni-ties for recreation. With two 
other major .public landowners the situation 
is, however, different. The first, the 
Nature Conservancy Council, administers 
the system of National Nature 
Reserves, of which there are now 147; 
there are also a number O:f local nature 
<reserves, under the auspices of local 
a:uthorities. The primary purpose of all 
these reserves is a scienti'fic one: the 
study and conservation of the natural 
resources, flora, fauna or geology of 
each a·rea. As a secondary aim, in some 
reserves, public access i·s encouraged and 
prov·ision made for it. But wherever 
ready access might endanger the primary 
purpose, it is actively discouraged. This 
leads to wide differences between one 
-reserve and the next. For example, the 

IBeinn Eighe National Nature Reserve 
has, long followed an energetic policy 
of .provision for the public, while a little 
further north at InverpoUy the priorities 
are very different and access is discouraged. 


The scientific purposes of the reserves 
must obviously always come first. Rare 
b~rds must be protected, -the herds managed 
or the flora preserved. But provision 
should be made for recreation 
wherever possible-even if that means 
simply enabling the public to view and 
understand those things of scientific 
interest which led -to the original creation 
of the -reserve. This principle should be 
more consistently applied. 

The largest public landowner of all in the 
countryside is the Forestry Commission, 
and here again the aims clash. The main 
purpose of the Commission is afforestation, 
not provision for recreation, and 
clearly this will always be the case. 
Forests can, however, also provide good 
recreation areas, particularly for day-
visitors, ·and to its credit the Commission 
is coming increasingly to reali-se 
this. We are beginning to see the designation 
of large areas as Forest Parks, 
the issuing of guidebooks, the provision 
of car .parks and picnic sites and visitor 
centres and trails of various kinds. All 
these are all to be greatly welcomed. 

Other aspects of Forestry Commission 
policy are still far from perfect, however, 
and this is particularly true of the 
scenic value of some of their plantingand felling policies of their fondness for 
straight lines and unrelieved evergreens. 
Fortunately, the Commission's policiesin this .respect have been improving in 
recent years, but they still have a long 
way to go. 

These are the weightiest of the publ.ic 
bodi·es with some degree of responsibilityfor amenity provision in the countryside. 
There are .in all fourteen statutory 
organisations with a remit for different 
aspects of countryside policy and l·ittle 
is done to coordinate their activities. One 
of the strongest points made 'by the 
House of Commons Expenditure Com



mittee Report on the countryside in 
1977 was that there would be much to 
gain by a greater degree of liaison and 
rationalisation between them. The three 
authorities dealing with water resources 
and recreation could, for a start, be 
brought together. 

ministry of defence 

There is, however, another public body 
to be considered here whose remit in 
countryside terms in no way involves 
a contribution to the public amenity.
The Ministry of Defence owns 22 per 
cent of the Northumberland National 
Park and 5 per cent of the Pembroke· 
shire Coast and Dartmoor Parks, as well 
as sizeable holdings of land in Areas of 
Outstanding Natural Beauty. It uses 
these areas for military training and in 
many cases prohibits access to the public. 
This situation is surely unacceptable in 
areas which have been dedicated to conservation 
and recreation, and the recommendations 
of the Nugent Committee 

(Report of the Defence Land's Com


mittee, HMSO, 1973) were too anaemic in 

this report. 

Almost as bad has been the recent "nonstatutory 
" report by Baroness Sharp on 
the continued use of Dartmoor for military 
training. She found that "militarytraining and a national park are discordant, 
incongruous and inconsistent". 
but came up with the inconsequentialrecommendation that there should be 
" no change in the defence land holdings 
on Dartmoor ", this de pite the fact that 
those defence holdings amount to almost 
a third of the open moorland available 
for public access in the whole of the 
park. In responding to Lady Sharp, the 
government has been even more unhelpful, 
sweeping away the values of the 
national park as secondary to defence 
needs. 

The minority recommendation of John 
Cousins of the Sandford Committee is 
much more in keeping with the aims of 
the parks : while realising that there a_re 
military need he suggest that the aim 
should be progressive reduction in 

defence land holdings in the national 
parks and that the land .thus released 
should be handed over to the parkauthorities. 

private land 

There are, of course, many areas of 
beautiful countryside which are privately 
owned and not publicly designated in 
any way and there pwbaibly will be for 
many years to come. Apart from rights 
of way, access in these areas exists by 
custom and tolerance of the landowners. 
As far as farm land is concerned, access 
must obviously be controlled to some 
extent to protect the agricultural uses 
of the land. 

Access to open country, however-to hill 
and moorland, not used intensively for 
agriculture-is still needlessly restricted 
in some places. There is too much lingering 
reverence for the rights of propertyand too little for the rights of the public 
to 'enjoy a common resource. The prob.
Jem becomes particularly acute where it 
is claimed that public access will inter· 
fere with " sporting " rights especiallyin Scotland-rights which seem to debar 
the public, sometimes threateningly, from 
access to vast areas of countryside for 
months at n time, and at popular holidayperiods too. Things are clearly better by 
far than they were in the days of the 
old battles for the right to wander on 
Kinder. But all is not yet won, even now. 


3. problems of the presentsystem 
There are many weaknesses in the current 
pattern of parks and countrysideprovision. Where the care of the countryside 
is left largely to individual effort 
with little national guidance or standards 
and meagre financial support, it is not 
surprising that a fairly chaotic picture 
emerges. 

Strengthening the park system, however, 
is not an easy task. The needs for change 
must be stressed, but we must also be 
aware of the problems -involved in 
change-problems dictated by the character 
and purposes of the parks themselves. 
In this chapter, some of these 
needs, and the concomitant problems,
will be discussed, before an attempt is 
later made to sketch a few possible 
answers. 

an inhabited landscape 

The first problem that should be borne 
in mind is the unique character of 
Br·itain's landscape. The Sandford Report(ibid) quoting Hobhouse (ibid) points 
·this out with great clarity: "Here are 
no vast expanses of virgin land . . . 
which can be set aside for public enjoyment 
or conserv·ation of wild life. 

Instead we are dealing with a closelypopulated and highly developed country, 
where almost every acre of land is used 
in some degree for the economic needs 
of man and has its place in a complex 
design of agricultural, industrial or residentj.
al use. Yet it is just because this is 
a densely popula-ted and highly industrial 
country that the need for national parks 
is so pressing . . . Since it is not possible 
to sterilise great tracts of land, like 
the Yellowstone or the Kruger National 
Parks . . . it is all the more urgent to 
ensure that some at least of the extensive 
areas of beautiful and wild countryin England and Wales are specially protected 
as part of the national heritage." 
The problem is that Bri-tain's national 
parks are, in large measure, places where 
people live and work and go about their 
daily business. America, by contrast, 
possesses large tracts of beautiful and wild 
ter.rain which contain virtually no forms 

of habitation or industry or ev·en agriculture 
; our parks are more varied, 
more populated, and consequently more 
difficult to organise and manage. Indeed, 
one of the great qualities of our landscape 
has always been the way in which 
it has been cultivated over so many centuries. 
It would be as harmful to sterilise 
it completely as it would be to neglect 
any level of protection at all. 

In France's V a n o i s e Park, officially 
opened in 1963, as in the older Gran 
Paradiso Park in the same range of 
mountains across the border in Italy,
the problem was solved by drawing a 
high contour line as the lower limit for 
the park boundary, rarely falling below 
1,200 metres. In effect the valleys runninginto the area, containing the main 
centres of population and actively, were 
excluded. But this could not really serve 
as a solution for Britain, as the hills are 
not so high, the lines are more difficult 
to draw and much of the particularbeauty of the parks derives from the 
lower ground as much as from the 
higher levels. In Britain, it would be 
neither easy nor sensi•ble to divorce the 
valleys from the mountains or moorland 
in such a way. 

In setting up our ten national parks, we 
have failed to decide for certain what we 
want them to be. Are they to be extensive 
areas of nationally controlled and 
completely p r e s e r v e d land, as in 
America ? Or are they to be glorified 
green belts in beautiful parts of the 
countryside, locally organised, with some 
restrictions on development, a benignoverseeing authority .and little overall 
control ? The impression given by our 
parks at the moment is that we haven't 
really decided. In the absence of 
decision, we have veered involuntarilytoward the latter concept. Certainly, the 
needs of local people and activities forbid 
American-style separation of large 
areas ; yet the demands of conservation 
and recreation should take our parks far 
beyond the glorified green-belt idea. Our 
national parks at present do not have 
enough national ·identity or purpose. 
The potential conflict between local and 
national needs was well illustrated in the 


Commons debate of 17 January 1975, 
on a motion to take note of the Sand-
ford Report (a motion which incongruously 
lumped together the Sandford 
and Nugent Reports). Many of the contributions 
to the debate were, inevitably, 
strongly influenced by local needs in the 
areas covered by the national parks, with 
the more general principles behind the 
Report tending to be forgotten as a result. 

The same impulse, to downgrade the 
national aims of the parks, wa•s all too 
dearly and astonishingly shown by the 
Information Officer of the Snowdonia 
National Park, who in a letter to the 
Climber and Rambler (April 1975 
magazine a few years ago urged them to 
"encourage responsibility and self-discipline 
among your readers who should 
have realised long ago that the nat.jonal 
park was not created for them." Surely, 
if our national parks are to mean anything, 
it is that they were created-
definitely, though not exclusively-forthem. 

A good example of exactly the same 
problem of priorities has occurred 
recently on Exmoor. Over the past 
twenty years or so, about one fifth of 
the open moorland and rough grazing 
land on the moor has been ploughed up 
and brought into agricultural use, thus 
depriving the public of a large area of 
accessible land. There is obviously a 
good case to be made in favour of these 
changes: increasing agricultural .production 
and a stimulus to the local 
economy are valuable developments. But 
there is, equally obviously, a good case 
for sounding the alarm at the loss of 
so high a proportion of a precious and 
fragile resource, particularly in the south 
of England where areas of wild and open 
country are so scarce. 

At present, however, the value of conservation 
is not allowed an effective 
voice in the argument. The Park 
Authority is subordinate to the County 
Council, nearly all of which are in 
favour of such development, and some 
of whose members are quite probably 
carrying it out. There are, in addition, 
Ministry of Agriculture grants availa'ble 

.for ploughing up land for agriculture,
while there are no funds available to preserve 
this same land for the park. The 
Park Authority is left standing helplessly 
on the sidelines, unable to counter the 
forces ranged a g a i n s t conservation, 
unable even to put a strong case for 
the values it is charged to uphold. 

access 

Related to this whole debate is another 
difficult problem-the questi-on of public 
access. Indeed, one of the major forces 
'behind the i n i t i a l estalblishment of 
national parks in England and Wales was 
the campaign for unimpeded access to 
open upland country. Designation as a 
National Park or .an Area of Outstanding 
Natural Beauty does not, however, 
confer any unconditional rights ; access 
other than on rights af way has to be 
negotiated by the park authorities, and 
the process of negotiation is a long .and 
painstaking one. There are reserve compulsory 
powers, but these have only been 
invoked on the rarest of occasions. 

The present conditions work largely to 
the advantage of the landowner and 
not to the advantage of the public. A 
recent example in the Forest of Bowland 
(an AONB) illustrates the point: access 
over a piece of uncultivated moorland,
used primarily for shooting purposes by 
the owner, was fiercely contested for 
years, until finally an access agreement 
was drawn up. Over a substantial partof the area covered, access was restricted 
to one path, marked by a series of posts ; 
no access would be a.Uowed on shooting 
days or during droughts ; wardens 
would ensure adherence to these conditions 
and a considerable sum of 
money would be paid every year to the 
owner as a consideration. In other words, 
on virtually the only days when access 
has any likelihood of damaging the 
owner's interests, it is prohibited, and the 
prohibition is ensured by wardens. The 
payment of public funds as " compensation 
" in such cases lis questionable.
It is not enough to say, as the Sandford 
Report, (ibid) does, (page 31) that "the 
public had long enjoyed access to the 


hills by custom ar tolerance and this 
situation has continued." That is by and 
large true; but there are too manyexceptions. Access in some places is still 
difficult, .and with increasing numbers of 
vis-itors many landowners are becoming 
even more reluctant than before to permit 
ready access. 

To cope with the cases of intransigence,
the park authorities should be given a 
more positive ro.le in creating access 
agreements, and the agreements themselv
·es should be less hedged about with 
qualifications. This would not guaranteethe right to wander uninhibitedly in open 
country, but ]t would make it much 
easier. 

Such access can of course lead on 
occasion to the disturbance of livestock 
and to damage to fence and walls. The 
only ultimate answer must lie in greater 
public education and the role of the 
w.arden service can be crucial here. As 
the Sandford Report has pointed out, 
in the parks with exceptionally largenumlbers of v•isitors there have been 

.relatively .few local complaints about 
vjsitor behaviour-and these are the 
parks with the most fully developedwarden services. If damage were to be 
caused in any w.ay, then suitable recompense 
would be necessary, or ~he maintenance 
or repair work could be carried 
out by workers employed by the parkauthority. The problems are not insuperable. 


development 

New developments of buildings or roads 
or open-cast mining or l.arge commercial 
enterprise are more often than not 
unsightly and intrusive in .an area supposedly 
devoted to conservation and 
recreation. It is sad that this truth still 
needs emphasising, but it does. 

On the whole, small scale privatedevelopments have been fairly well con· 
trolled in recent years, although there 
have been some problems. For examplethe Ger.eral Development Order systemenabling some farm building and road 

development to be carried out without 
applying for specific planning permission 
needs s u b s t anti a I revision. And at 
present, the lbull-dozing of " agricultural 
" tracks across hill or moorland 
needs no planning perm1ss1on, and 
especially in the Eastern Highlands of 
Scotland this has caused a large amount 
of unsightly damage-indeed, one of the 
worst offenders has been the Balmoral 
Estate. In addibion, too many commercial 
developments try·ing to tap the 
tourist trade have been of an unnecessarily 
ugly character. This is particuLarly 
true of caravan sjtes. No-one has yetreally succeeded in reconciling the legitimate 
requirements of caravanners for 
sites in convenient locations with the 
necessity of hiding and screening them 
so that they make no impact on the landscape, 
and of siting them in appropriaterather than obstrusive locations. 

The major problems, however, arise over 
large scale developments, both privateand public, which are claimed to be "in 
the national interest". This categorycovers such projects as road building or 
improvement, reservoirs, power stations, 
mining for essential minerals and ·oilrelated 
development. These cases present 
an unavoidable clash between two sets 
of justifiable values: on the one hand the 
pr.actical advantages to the nation or to 
local people of such a development ; on 
the other, the qualities of the park or of 
the countryside-qualities which are 
intangible and cannot be weighed in an 
economic balance, but which are of 
immense and enduring value. 

It is a question of cash savings and 
foreign currency (and the other social 
needs those could meet) against the 
damage to the parks. The equation is not 
an easy one to reconcile; but at present, 
the potential harm to the parks does 
tend to be dangerously underestimated 
and under-represented in the argument.
In cases such .as these conflicting olaims 
of parkland and ·economy, we have not 
even realised the full nature of the problem 
; we have failed to sort out our 
priorities, to decide what environmental 
damage, if any, is acceptable and for 
what reasons. It is surely ·in the national 


parks, more than anywhere, that we 
should be trying to sort out the answers, 
to define those boundaries, imposing constraints 
so that alternatives can be tried, 
moving the frontiers of acceptabilitytowards higher standards and higherexpectations. 

Simply because a mining company states 
that there is only one place or one way 
in which it can extract a particula·r 
mineral does not mean that they should 
be permitted to do so. The controversy 
over Rio Tinto Zinc in Snowdonia is 
now well known, when RTZ proposedlarge scale open-cast copper mining at 
Coed y Brenin, aiming to extract 35 
million tons of rock a year. They were 
even aUowed to go ahead with explana· 
tory drilling operations. In general, there 
has been a tendency for too few ques· 
tions to be asked, by planning officers, 
or government or at times even the parkauthorities themselves. 

In other spheres of national life, we 
have made a start on legislation to pre· 
vent excessive pollution, but we have 
been unable to apply this to the country· 
side. To a certain extent, we can impose 
restraints on noise levels and on effluent 
discharged into rivers and on citysmoke ; why not, then, on the visual 
impact of developments in the countryside? 
The criteria are more difficult to 
delineate, certainly but the principle-
pushing up the standards by imposing 
restraints-is the same and could be 
effective. It is only by the creation of 
such restraints and standards that 
economic activity can ever be stirred to 
find the more difficult-but ultimately 
the more beneficial-alternative courses 
of action. 

There is another important fact, however, 
Which affects thi -the que tion of 
local employment. Rural districts often 
have high unemployment and low wage . 
and this consideration, quite rightly,
weighs trongly in the attitudes of local 
authoritie and of g o v e rn m e n t to 
development proposals in these areas. 
Recentl y, on the west coast of Scotland, 
the Secretary of State far Scotland gave 
permission for the Howard-Doris Com


pany's oil-rig !building scheme at Kishorn 
(which is not in a park, but probablyought to be), largely on the groundsthat !the local people wanted it. 

It is a telling argument, but sadly the 
benefit to local people proves all too 
often to be elusive. Workers are broughtin from outside, placing great strain on 
the infrastructure and social fabric of an 
area; earnings from tourism are sometimes 
adversely affected; where local 
labour is used, manpower is often taken 
on for a relatively short period and then 
left high and dry ; or once the scheme 
is started it becomes an expensive white 
elephant, like the oil-rig building platform 
at Portavadie on the shores of 
Loch Fyne. At Kishom itself, orders are 
now apparently running out, and far 
from bringing any local benefit to the 
community, there is a grave danger that 
a social wilderness will be left behind. 

Local unemployment can only really be 
solved by the introduction of long term 
smaller industries suited to the locality. 
We should be improving the ways in 
which we provide for, and encourage, 
this kind of industry and development-
not running headlong into the arms of 
companies wishing to milk the resources 
of an area for a short period of time. 
However strong the case may appear to 
be, we must apply the highest and strictest 
standards to any proposals for 
industrial or commercial or mineral 
development in the parks. At present. we 
give in too easily. It has been said by 
John Rosenberg in his study of Ruskin 
that " Clement Attlee, in his austerely 
restrained history of the Labour Party, 
indulges in lyricism and wra·th only when 
writing of the English countryside and 
its desecration by an economy obsessed 
with profit." That care, and that wrath. 
are still badly needed today. 

duality of purpose 

The prinicipal statutory purposes of 
national parks are twofold : conservation 
of natural beauty, and provision for 
public enjoyment-while at the same 
time protecting the needs of local people. 


There is, in fact, a major inherent conflict 
between these purposes of conservation 
and recreation, and it has become 
increasingly apparent over the last 
twenty years. The same is true of all 
areas of beautiful countryside, but the 
problem is most acute in the park,
because of the added attraotion of designation. 
Increased recreation opportunities 
and the expanding numbers of 
visitors, are beginning to destroy precisely 
those qualities and values that 
people are coming to the countryside to 
find. 

The problems are clearest in the case of 
traffic. The great majority of visitors to 
national and country parks are now 
motorised, and their main interest is in 
driving, having a picnic, viewing the 
scenery and staying by their car or 
walking only a short distance from it. 
A consequence of this is a great increase 
in traffic-frequently on narr.ow roads-
large car parks and picnic sites full of 
people, and the disappearance of the 
quietness and solitude that many of these 
visi-tors are seeking. The same is even 
true away from the road: a recent study 
O'f Snowdon, for example, estimated that 
half a million people visit the summit 
half a million people visited the summit 
every year, half by railway and half by 
foot: the resultant condition of the 
summit is, sadly, all too obvious. 

Yet much of this increasing activity, this 
appreciation of and desire to get into the 
countryside, is something to be warmly 
welcomed. We are caught in a terrible 
dilemma. On the one hand we want to 
encourage people to enjoy the countryside 
and the open air; on the other, we 
want to conserve these things, to ensure 
that there is countryside and quietnessand beauty ther·e to be enjoyed. 
The Sandford Report, which illustrates 
this problem well, states as a clear 
principle for action that, where the purposes 
of the parks conflict, the aim of 
conservation must always come before 
the aim of r e c rea t ·i o n. This is 
undoubtedly right. There is no point in 
encouraging a search for things ·of value 
only to allow the search to destroy th~m. 
But it is also important that recreatiOn 

should be encouraged so long as it does 
not conflict with the primary aim of 
conservation. Prohibition or limitation of 
recreation should only be a course of 
last resort. 

The only real way out of the dilemma 
lies in managing and planning for the 
most sensitive and appropriate use of 
each part of the park. Much can be 
achieved by a process of providing for 
different needs in different places, byconcentrating or diversifying attractions 
as may be necessary. Those who are 
seeking gregarious activities can be 
catered for separately from those seeking 
solitude; warden and information 
services can be expanded ; and the 
development of country parks, particularly 
nearer cities, can help to ease the 
pressure on larger areas. A reliance on 
planning or management of this or anykind is an inadequate guarantee ; theyare frail instruments, and cannot provide 
a whole answer. But they may at least 
provide the possibility of a solution. 


4. the current debate: 
reports and committees 
The past three years have seen a whole 
flood of reports and committees analysing 
the prolblems of Britain'-s countryside, 
and of its parks in par·ticular_ The 
most important of these has been the 
Sandford Report which carried out an 
~ntensive ·ex.aminClltion of the record aad 
pol1icies ·of nationa.J parks in Englandand Wales. 

the Sandford report 

The Sandford Repor•t's investigation is 
in many ways an excellent and thorough 
one. Especially in its consideration of 
the detailed running of the parks-thedifferent facilities that can be provided 
for visitors, fue managing of farming, 
forestry and traffic-it poses the problems 
and recommends solutions with 
a;wareness and insight. 

The Report is less cogent, however, in 
its approach to the wider issues of control 
and management. The kind of management 
and administrative structure the 
parks have is the key-in the short term 
at least-to their success or failure. The 
Report acknowledges this but does not 
really follow the logic of -the problemand examine exhaustively the kinds of 
management structure necessary. To be 
fair, these questions were I a r g e I yexcluded from the Committee's remit,
but nonetheless the majority of its members 
have assumed too readily that the 
problems can be solved within the existing 
arrangements, and moreover within 
existing institutions. 

It is partly because of this gap in Sand-
ford fuat the following chapter of proposals 
concentrates primarily on the 
status and management of our parks.
These are the most important questions 
of all. Yet while Sandford may have 
skated over them, even less attention is 
paid by the other surveys and reports. 

The only notable exception is a valuable 
pamphlet published by the Countryside 
Commission for Scotland in 1974 
entitled A Park System for Scotland. It 
refers specifically to Scotland ; but its 
comments are of much wider relevance, 

and form pa;rt of the discussion of a 
general park system in the chapter that 
follows. 

circular 4/76 

Most ·of the other assessments of parkand countryside policy in recent years,
however, have lbeen far more complacent 
and in one case in particularoutrageously so: the Government's official 
response to Sandford, which was DOE 
Circular 4/76, dated 12 January, 1976, 
(HMSO). The whole circular is imbued 
with a fa·ith in the effectiveness of existing 
.arrangements and an expectationthat everything wiH work aut for the 
best. 

In rhe Circular the government refuse 
to amend the procedures for designating 
new national parks to allow for an automatic 
recourse to a public inquiry if 
designation is rejected. They do not 
accept the idea of a compulsory power 
of -last resort to acquire land to conserve 
its natural beauty. They do not believe 
it necessary to introduce planning control 
for forestry operations and they do 
not accept the establishment of the safeguards 
proposed by Sandford againstminera•l w o r k i n g s. They see the 
strengthening of development controls in 
national parks as the preserve of the 
structure plan drawn up for each parka 
process which will, in fact, producead hoc rather than systematic safeguards. 
They provide no suggestions for the 
improvement of public access to opencountry and they play down the significance 
af defence land holdings in 
national parks. 

The Circular, it is true, does contain a 
numlber of valuable proposals, especially 
in the Department's advocacy of publ-ic 
transport (and the use of supplementarygrant in support), and in their suggestion 
for the disposal of land in lieu o.f estate 
duty. But in most of their recommendations, 
they fa·ll far short even of the 
relatively mild proposals of the Sandford 
Report. Nowhere is this clearer than in 
the sections on administration and staffing. 
The inclusion of the park authorities 


within the county council system and 
the present provisions for the sharing of 
some staff are accepted with blithe confidence, 
completely ignoring the manyproblems these arrangements are causing_ 

expenditure committee 

The Six.th Report of the House of Commons 
Expenditure Committee in the 
1975-6 session was entitled National 
Parks and the Countryside (He 1975-6).
The Report's main thrust .js a strong,
and effective, criticism of how little 
overall strategy there is in Government 
for countryside policy. It highlights well 
the ramshackle jumble of different 
authorities responsible for different (and 
in some cases the same) aspects of 
countryside policy ; the fourteen statutory 
authorities, and relevant ministries, 
will sometimes dup·licate effort needlessly, 
or even pull in opposite directions. 

In its ·examination of expenditure, too, 
the Report's comments are perceptive.
It proposes a sliding scale for the percentage 
payment of National Park 
Supplementary Grant, to accord with the 
varying prosperity of local authorities 
in park areas; it makes a number of 
valuable suggestions on the actual payment 
of grant; and it proposes a capital 
fund for opportunity purchases. What 
the Report also does, very strongly, is to 
make a plea for the value-and extreme 
fragility-of expenditure on the countryside. 
Especially in the current economic 
climate, it is a plea that cannot be made 
too strongly. 

The Report is more timid when it comes 
to other questions. Its examination of 
the staffing and administration of the 
parks, like Sandford's, fails to take full 
account of the difficulties and strains 
imposed by the existing arrangements.
It does mention the problems-the 
stresses, for example, between parkauthorities and their parent countycouncils-but it lamely concludes that 
"the relationship between the national 
park committees and the county councils 
be examined in the review", and that the 
review should be brought forward to 

1979. The Government, meanwhile, has 
refused to entertain even this mild suggestion. 


the countryside 

Most timid .of all, however, have been 
the recent discussion and topic papersfrom the Countryside Review Committee, 
an ·interdepartmental committee, 
established under the auspices of the 
Department of the Environment. Theyhave to date produced a general discussion 
.paper The Countryside-Problems 
and Policies (HMSO, 1976) and two 
topic papers (Topic Paper 1, Rural Communities, 
HMSO, 1977 and Topic Paper 2, 
Leisure and the Countryside, HMSO, 

1977). 

As a background assessment of the growing 
problems faced in the determination 
of countryside policy, these papers are 
useful. They delineate the conflicts of 
interest between agriculture, industry.
and recreation ; they identify many of 
the problems of declining employment, 
of transport, housing, and pressure from 
increasing numbers of visitors. But there 
-with one or two exceptions-they stop.
Their suggestions for ·improvement tend 
to be phrased in vague, unspecific terms, 
calling for greater cooperation, or more 
concentration on particular areas, or the 
creation of different employment opportunities-
and yet rarely identifying what 
organisation or channels or groups of 
people could achieve these purposes, or 
what could be done, by administrative 
and legisla·tive means, to help resolve the 
problems. 

It is all very well to say, as they do in 
their discussion paper, that in our overcrowded 
country you cannot define an 
exclusive use for an area of countryside,
that you must allow for a multiplicity of 
uses and determine priorities within 
them. But who exactly will decide on 
the priorities and ensure that they are 
recognised, and what back-ups powerswill there be, and to whom will the 
whale process be accountable ? These 
questions are on the who I e left 
unanswered, and in some cases unasked. 


Their recommendation that ministers 
and organisations should be c"'lled to 
account, .annually, for the exercise of 
their responsibilities under Section 11 of 
the Countryside Act 1968 is a glowingexception. This Section lays on ministers 
and organisations with relevant responsibilities 
the duty of having "regard to 
the desirability of conserving the natural 
beauty ,and amenity of the countryside." 
Formal accountability to Parliament 
under this Section-combined with a 
monitoring of their performance byindependent " user" bodies-would at 
least be a step towards greater coherence 
in the administration of countrysidepolicy. Would that the Review Committee 
had been as definite, .and as bold, 
elsewhere. 

the american comparison 

The inadequacy of current arrangements 
and proposals can be emphasised by a 
brief comparison with the way in which 
America organises its .park system. In all, 
the USA has 38 national parks, and a far 
greater number of national forests, 
national monuments, s tat e parks,
national recreation areas, and national 
lakeshores or seashores. These national 
parks and many of the subsidiary park 
areas are owned by the nation a rare 
example of common ownership being at 
a more advanced stage on the other side 
of the Atlantic. Their administration is 
the responsibility of the National Park 
Service, and the degree of provision for 
the public is superb. There are attractive 
visitor centres with exhibitions and films 
and explanations of geology or botanyor climate. Leaflets and maps are handed 
to you as you enter the park. There are 
trails of all kinds and lengths; careful 
management of traffic ; campsites which 
are well sited and screened and provide 
individual plots for each group of 
campers ; picnic areas in the right places,
and with good facilities ; and a warden 
service, increased in the summer months 
with student staff, which is almost 
universally helpful. 

In some ways, the Americans go ,too far. 
They tend to over-organise their parks. 

There are too many distinctions with 
category after category of park and too 
rigid ·a system of classification. There is 
too much regimentation of the visitor 
in some places~littering a footpath with 
notices, putting out localised messagesfor your car radio, covering a path ·into 
the hills with tarmac, or requiring permits 
for overnight camping in the backcountry. 
There is sometimes an unfortunate 
sense of the park as ·a hermetically 
sealed unit, a series of " sights " somehow 
divorced .and different from the 
active world outside. 

But it remains powerfully true that the 
Americans do a very good job of running 
their parks. By comparison our own 
system has a Jot to learn. We must not, 
of course, go the whole hog. Our landscape 
simp-ly is not suitable for total 
preservation in the American way; and 
above all, we must try never to forswear 
the freedom from restriction which is 
the essence of wilderness country. There 
is, however, much scope, and much need, 
for improvement on our part. 


5. proposals 
It is hardly surpnsmg that, faced with 
the present tenuous system of countryside 
provision, the public has formed 
little identification with the idea of our 
parks. Few people have anything but the 
haziest notion of what they are or 
signify. And the shameful fact remains 
that designating an area of land as a 
national park-however dedicated most 
of our park authorities are-means verylittle, in terms of ownership or protection 
or public provision. 

This chapter outlines a number of proposals 
which could help to improve the 
way we regard and care for our parks.
Many of the proposals can be initiated 
at least within the present legislative 
framework and expenditure ceilings.
Ultimately, however, a new Countryside 
Act will be necessary to enshrine new 
purposes and forms for the parks and 
park authorities, and ideally a rationalisation 
of countryside policy-making as 
a whole could be carried out at the same 
time. 

the park system 

Our first priority should be the establishment 
of a recognisable system, to replace 
the present jumble of different areas ; 
and here the proposals of the Countryside 
Commission for Scotland, outlined 
in their pamphlet A Park System for 
Scotland (ibid) provides a useful catalyst. 
The Commission begins by assessing the 
differing uses to which areas of countryside 
are suited, and the differingrecreation needs they are called upon to 
serve. The scale runs from intensivelydeveloped areas used for sports and 
games, through to primitive areas used 
for wilderness activities such as hikingand camping. Adapting this scale of 
varying use and need, .the Commission 
proposes a tiered system of parks, and 
the range they suggest is fourfold: 
urban parks, country parks, regionalparks and special parks. 

This proposed pattern has its faults, but 
it provides a good starting-point for the 
construction of a park system for Britain 
as a whole. The idea of a tiered system 

is the crucial one-although it must not 
be taken too far into the realms of 
landscape categorisation. Modifying the 
Commission's proposals, and applyingthem throughout England and Wales as 
well as Scotland, we can begin to form a 
viable and exciting park system on a 
national scale. 

The pattern of countryside parks should 
involve three basic kinds. The first would 
be the country parks, for which provision 
exists already under the Countryside 
Acts. Most of these would be areas 
of pleasant countryside, publicly owned 
and managed, and devoted entirely to 
provision for public recreation, as at 
present. They might well be fairly small, 
the activities often but not necessarilygregarious, and the services of the 
operating authority could provide for 
both amenity and education. Many, 
though by no means all, would be situated 
within easy reach of urban centres, 
and at weekends special puW-ic transportfacilities could be provided. 

The second kind would invoive somewhat 
larger and more diverse areas, and 
would perhaps carry the name of 
regional parks-similar to the idea 
pioneered in the Clyde/Muir s hie I 
Regional Park by Renfrew CountyCounciL There would be a wide variety 
of use, ranging from high intensityrecreation to low; there would probably 
also be some areas in the park used for 
purposes ather than public recreation, 
particularly agriculture. A similar principle 
lies behind the idea of the Lee 
Valley Park in London-a large and 
diverse area for outdoor recreation-
although there the setting is of course 
a strongly urban one which could, in 
time, add a new and challenging dimension 
to the park. 

There would be differences in size and 
in some of the uses of these country and 
regional parks, but the underlying concept 
is the same: the provision of a 
recreation and countryside area of great 
local significance. 

The third kind of park would be the 
national park, and these should be areas 


of countryside and seashore which have 
national signi'ficance. The model would 
be those existing at present in Englandand Wale . aHhough with a different 
consitution and much stronger powersfor the park aut'horitie . The purposeshould be .the ones outlined in the I Q49 
Act, of promoting conservation and 
recreation, while still protecting present 
u e . The primary emphasis should be 
written into a new Act as being that of 
conservation ; and the Act should also 

tress, in strong terms, the degree of 
national importance these national parks 
should have, to provide further safeguards 
in their day-to-day life. 

It is appropriate that this idea of a 
" national " park-and the n a m e-
should be used in ScoNand as well as in 
the re t of the country ; the Commission' 
idea of "special " parks, thoughclo e, does not really go far enough.
The national park concept applies just 
a readily to the Scottish countrysideand the public could begin to form an 
identification with the name and the 
idea not only in England and Wales but 
north of the border too. At the same 
time, however, a concerted effort is 
needed to help the public understand 
exacNy what a national park is, to try 
to erode some of the mi understandings 
that currently per ist. 

It will not be possible, or desirable, to 
organise all areas of outstanding or 
valuable countryside into uch a threefold 
system of parks. and yet many areas 
outside the park system will stiU need 
protection and care. Accordingly, there 
should be a form of designation, possibly 
as at present as an Area of OutstandingNatural Beauty, which would not confer 
formal tatus a a park, but would 
require a special level of protection. As 
with a li ted building, uch a designation 
would alert the planning authorities. and 
the g neral public. to the need of the 
area ; and it would impo e automatic 
con traints on proposal for development 
or re triction of acce 

Linked to this .tiered y tern of countryide 
parks, though not directly, would 
be the urban parks; the e demand of 

course their own forms of managementand meet different purposes from those 
of parks in the countryside. They are 
included here rather because .they should 
not be divorced too radically from other 
forms of park. Education for, and promotion 
of, the countryside starts in the 
neighbourhood or city park and not only 
at the edge of the suburbs. The countryside 
element as such is normal·ly missing,
and the recreation use is more intensive 
and often more organised; but the 
·principle, of open ·air •and open space 
is at heart the same. 

the overseeing authorities : 
boards or committees ? 

The most glaring inadequacy in our 
present system, however, lies in the committee 
structure which oversees most of 
the national parks. It seems specificallydesigned to remove any " national " 
element from the parks' function or ethos. 
Under the 1949 Act, modified by the 
Local Government Act of 1972, the 
running of each park is the responsibi>lity 
of a planning board, or a committee of 
the local planning authority. In multi-
county parks, the committee is r~sponsible 
either to one of the constituent 
authorities or jointly to all. The crucial 
fact i that the management structure of 
the parks lies, more or less, within the 
framework of local government. 

The overseeing authorities set up under 
this system are diverse in character and 
quality. Th Peak District has its own 
joint planning board, as does the Lake 
District ; two thirds of the members are 
appointed by the county authorities and 
one third by the Secretary of State-but 
they are independent of the countycouncil framework a such. The other 
eight parks, however, are simply the 
re ponsi bility of park planning committees 
of the relevan.t county councils, 
rather than independent boards. There is 
even, in these parks, a de facto rule 
which prevents any of the members 
(again one third) appointed by the Secretary 
of State from becoming chairman 
or the vice-chairman of the committee. 
Where the park authority is kept within 
the structure of local government, it is 


often accorded a low level of priorityin the spectrum of council affairs, and 
has diminished power to operate on its 
own. The park authority has to relp for 
some of its work on members of the 
counci·l's staff, who have other preoccupations. 
And always, in the deliberations 
of the park committee and-much 
more so-of the local authority that 
can override it, local interests and priorities 
will be to the forefront, even if they 
conflict with the purposes for which the 
park was originally established. If a conflict 
of any kind develops, it is all too 
often the local authority which wins. 
The welfare of the park, its value to the 
national beyond the local community, 
takes second place. 

The most glaring instance recently has 
been the development of serious tension 
between the North Yorkshire CountyCouncil and the National Park Committee 
for the Yorkshire D ales. There have 
been disputes about appointments, about 
the number of part time wardens, the 
frequency of committee meetings, even 
~bout the status of the park itself. There 
have been similar.Jy strained relations in 
the Pembrokeshire Coast Park. And in 
the days when the Lake District Planning 
Boards ; despite its board &tatus had to 
depend on the local authority for administrative 
staff, there was a stark refusal 
by Cumberland County Council to provide 
the board with the services of 
council officers in preparing a case 
against the improvements to the A66. 
Such a situation is unforgiveable, and is 
a direct consequence of the committee 
system. 

Not only does the quality and achievement 
of the national parks suffer because 
of this system, 'but it also varies widely, 
with the diverse standards of wealth and 
interest of the relevant local authorities. 
The number of full time wardens employed 
ranges from two to eleven of 
part time wardens from none to 160 of 
voluntary wardens from none to well 
over three hundred. The establishment 
of visitor .and information centres proceeds 
quickly in a few parks, painfully 
slowly in most. Al,ways, it tends to be 
the two parks ·with boards at their head, 

rather than county council committees, 
that provide the best service. 

On aH counts, the park that comes out 
by ifar the 'best is the Peak District. It 
does have natural advantages, especially 
in the high rateable value df the surrounding 
local authority areas. But it 
also has to cope with strong and difficult 
pressures. It is the closest of all 
national parks to London and it lies in 
the midst of ·large urban concentrations, 
with a particularly high level of weekend 
use. Its success, in provision for the 
public and care for the land under its 
remit, and in the initiatives it has taken 
and is taking in recreation is by anyyardstick remarkable. And this is largelydue to the independent management 
structure the Peak District has been 
allowed to have, radically different 
throughout its 'lifetime from that of anyother park. The only other which comes 
remotely close, even now, .js the Lake 
District. 

In reforming our national parks, therefore, 
four vital conditions must he met. 
The overseeing authority must be a 
planning board, not a committee of the 
local authority. '(This is a change that 
was urged by witness after witness 
before the House of Commons Expenditure 
Committee). The board mu&t be 
independent in act.jon. The managementand planning staff, who need not be great 
in number should work only for the 
board and not for two masters at once. 
And the board must have, written into 
its statutory duties, a primary responsibility 
to the aims olf the park and to the 
Secretary of State, rather than to the 
wishes of the local county authority. 

Local interests are nonetheless of greatimportance, and for this reason the board 
should still 'be an individual one; each 
single national park should have its own 
board, charged with responsibility for that 
park alone. There should be close liaison 
with the relevant county and district 
authorities, and formal provision for consultation 
with Iocal interests and groups. 
The park should have its own representatives 
on the water authorities, Forestry 
Commission and similar bodies. The 


interests of the rural economy should be 
taken into account and written into law, 
along with recreation provision, as one of 
the aims of the board ; but the principle 
of conservation must come first. An 
annual report should be made to the 
Secretary of State, accounting for progress 
during the year. 

The local authority should appoint some 
members of the board, but no more than 
a third of the total. All other members 
should be appointed by the relevant minister, 
with whom the ultimate responsibility 
and de m o c r a t i c accountability must 
reside. 

The Government stiU talks df waitinguntil 1981 b~fore even considering such 
changes in management and seeing in the 
interim how the present system proves 
itself. We have waited too long already. 
The present system quite patently ·is not 
proving itself: there is increasing friction 
between county councils and their park 
committees ; there is gross disparitybetween the eff·ectiveness of different committees 
; intrusive development is beingpushed through with the park authorities 
relatively powerless to protest and far 
from improving even in the local aspects 
of park management and guidance, there 
is rather an impasse with no progress in 
any direction. 

A structure of the kind described here 
would be that most suited to the management 
of a national park. This would not 
necessarily be the case with a country or 
regional park, where the significance is 
regional rather than national ; and the 
responsibilities of local authorities should 
in these cases be greater. The principle of 
of a board, largely independent in action,
could, however, still apply. The best 
scheme might well be to bring all country 
and regional parks within a region under 
the management of one separate planning 
board, whose members could be appointed 
two thirds by the local regionalauthority and one third by the minister. 
This balance would give an appropriateemphasis to the local importance of parks. 

In a new system of this kind, there will 
also be a need for a strong central co


ordinating authority to determine priorities 
and co-ordinate policy across the 
various parks. The authority should be a 
small separa·te department, or statutorybody; and the Countryside Commissions 
-which have consistently done valuable 
work in ·initiating and financing innovative 
ideas in park management-could developto fill this role. 

a co-ordinating authority 

The co-ordinating authority should, however, 
have a much wider job, with responsibilities 
for all countryside ma•tters other 
than those which are specifically agricultural. 
This is a crucial task, for the 
continuance of rural communities as living 
entities rather than museum pieces for visitors 
will become increasingly important. 
Within the broad remit of the authority, 
section responsibilities could exist for the 
various aspects of countryside work at 
present carried out by a variety of different 
bodies. Some of these organisations, 
such as the Nature Conservancy Council, 
could retain their individual identity, but 
fall under the linking role of the new 
authority. 

One of these smaller uni•ts could be given 
a special brief for conservation, recreation 
and the national parks. It should take 
overa-ll care of the park system, bringing 
the parks together, providing back-up services 
if needed, initiating experiments and 
representing the parks to the public and to 
Government. It could advise on appointments 
to park boards and could act as 
a clearing house for permanent staff. 

There should also be a separate ministerial 
a p p o in t men t with responsibility for 
countryside affairs, as there is for sport 
and for the arts. At present the countryside 
is the cinderella of ministerial responsibilities, 
tagged on variously at the 
bottom of the priority list of the Secretary 
of State for the Environment, and the 
Ministers for Agriculture and Sport. The 
only way in which the care of the countryside 
will receive a sufficiently authoritative 
voice in the face of conflicting pressures 
is to have a ministerial spokesman of its 
own, with direct responsibility for the 


co-ordinating authority. Fighting the combined 
forces of, say, a mul-ti-national 
mineral company, a county council, and 
the Department of Energy, is not easy for 
Countryside C o m m .j s s i o n or parkauthority with no clout to its name. 

staffing

~----~~--~--~~~~ 

Within this new structure, the adminis-trative 
staffing of all kinds of park should 
be on the basis of a park service, smaU 
but an a national scale. The United States 
has a service of this kind, which staffs 
everything from historic monuments to 
vast and remote tracts of Wyoming or 
Alaska. Such a spread of service would 
be unsuitable for Britain, but the idea is 
a valuable one. By having a service 
covering the whole of the countrysidepark system, much could be achieved that 
is lost under a pi e c em e a 1 local 
structure. 

A park service would be able to generate 
a pool of experienced and qualified manpower 
for park authorities .jn country,
regional and national parks ; it would 
allow greater mobility of expertise tfrom 
park to park; it could help to unify, and 
give an identity to, ·the whole park 
system; it could be flexible, allowingmovement into or out of the service ; and 
it could channel available resources of 
talent and -idealism into areas where it is 
greatly needed. 

There is also a fund of local and voluntary 
interest to be tapped. The enormous 
enthusiasm that carries through much of 
the conservation work of the National 
Trusts and the wardening of our parks 
at present-all of which could not otherwise 
be achieved-shows what is possible. 

In -terms of the principles of public provision, 
we are beginning in the Labour 
Party to .feel our way gingerly towards 
ideas o.f community participation and 
smallness of unit within a wider bureaucratic 
framework. The care of our 
countryside and for its visitors is ideal for 
this form of endeavour; and a park service 
of a consistent na-tional kind could 
provide just that indentifiable cause and 

excitement of purpose, within which 
participatory action could develop. 

expenditure 

Carrying out more vigorous policies in 
and for the parks will -inevitably involve 
higher costs and a period of severe 
economic restriction is not the easiest time 
to argue for more funds. But as the 
Sandford Committee pointed out anyincrease in park costs represents a tinyaddition to overall public expenditure. 
Expenditure on national parks in 1974-5 
was £3.2 million, on country parksapproximately £6 million, on the Country


side Commission £1 .7 million and on the 
Nature Conservancy Council £3.4 million. 
In 1976-77, total expenditure on national 
parks was £4.6 million. Park spending is 
less, by a large margin than current 
expenditure levels for the arts or for 
sport and physical recreation. There is 
also great economic benefit to be derived 
from touris-t income in park areas, and 
especially of course from .foreign currency. 
Above all, we should alwaysremember, in any assessment of parkexpenditure, that the value of what ·we are 
gaining is far greater than the relatively 
smaU outlays of public funds involved. 

Under the current arrangements for 
appor-tioning expenditure on the parks,
the Exchequer does bear the greater part ; 
this share should, if n e cess a r y, be 
increased-particularly where the national 
stake in the running of the parks is 
increased. The sliding scale proposed by 
the Commons Expenditure Committee, ·to 
take account of the varying wealth of the 
different authorities involved, would be 
much the best principle. The Exchequer'sshare could be increased also, but probably 
·to a lesser extent, in regional and 
country park expenditure. 

planning control 

A new management structure is a necessary 
precondition for improvement. The 
park authorities, however, must also be 
given sufficient power to fulfil the purposes 
for which the park were created. 


They need, first and foiemost, wider 
powers of planning control and scrutinyof proposed development. AH planning or 
development applications within the 
boundaries of a national (or, indeed a 
regional park, should be made in the first 
instance to the park authority. There has 
been a considerable improvement in this 
in the last few years: the park authorities 
now do carry out many planning functions 
for their area, especially in the cast 
of the board-run parks. The proceduresand powers should, however, be regularised 
and strengthened, and not left 
retractable by the local author·ity. 

The park authority should have a statutory 
duty to consult the local authority, 
and attempt to come to an agreeddecision. the final decision would, however, 
be taken by the park authority, and 
in cases of disagreement, the normal 
appeals process would always he available. 


There must, as Sandford suggests, be the 
strongest presumption against proposals 
for development in the parks. Sandford 
does not go far enough, however. The 
following principles should be written in 
to the park authority's planning br.jef, for 
major and pressing development of anykind. Before the development is allowed 
to proceed, it must be incontrovertibly 
proved: first, tha-t the work is without 
qualification crucial to the nation ; second, 
that there are no alternatives elsewhere, 
and that all such possibilities have been 
exhaustively examined ; third, that the 
environmental consequences have been 
fully considered, and ameliorated; fourth, 
that the development is carefully sited, in 
the position which will cause the least 
damage; and fifth, tha·t every effort i 
made during the lifetime of the projects, 
and after completion, to minimise its 
environmental impact. Even then, no automatic 
go-ahead should be given. There are 
some parts of the national parks where 
there should be a strong rule against anydevelopment, to be breached only after 
full deliberation by Parliament. 

In other words, the balance must be 
hifted in favour of the park authorityand its statutory dutie . The principle all 

the way through-in the consultation process, 
in the stringent screening of applications, 
and in particular at any publicinquiry-must be that the onus is on the 
developer to prove his case, not on the 
objector; the principles represented by 
the park authority should stand throughout 
not only with greater weight than they 
do at present, but with an assumptionthat they are paramount until provedotherwise. 

public ownership of land 

At present there are no great public holdings 
of land in the national parks. Land 
held by the National Trust in national 
parks is usually privately owned. The 
whole question of land ownership is an 
important, and neglected one. The Hob-
house Committee recommended a progressively 
greater public holding in the 
national parks ; and the Ramsay Committee 
in Scotland set a more immediate 
goal of national ownership or control. 
This has not occurred, and on presentshowing does not seem likely to occur. 
This is surely a matter for great regret. 
A certain amount can be achieved bymanagement and access agreements; but 
the only way of ensuring, ultimately, that 
the aims of the park are secured is, 
where necessary, by public ownership. 

The Sandford Committee proposes that 
park authorities should have the power to 
acquire-compulsor·ily if there is no 
alternative-any land which is in danger 
of being used or changed in a manner 
detrimental to the purposes of the park. 
They also propose the idea of " opportunity 
purchases", of land that happens 
to become available. 

These ideas, though valuable, should however 
be taken further. As a long-termaim, there should be a policy of progressive 
acquisition of land in the national 
parks by the park authorities. As a beginning 
at least, park authoritie could be 
given re pon ibility-though not laid 
down in a formal structure of any kind-
for the special, particular protection of 
the areas within their parks of the very 
highe t landscape value. Within these 


special areas a policy of gradual 1and 
purchase could be initiated. The only con· 
straint on acquisition should be the limited 
financial resources available; and ·in this 
context, the unexplained disappearance of 
most of the Land Fund from available 
Treasury monies-a fund set up for 
exactly this kind of purpose-has been 
especiaHy regrettable. 

other management and 
planning policies 

On the question of the more detailed 
planning controls and m a nag em en t 
policies that should be available to park.authorities, the Sandford Report is 
admirably thorough. A few points, however, 
deserve special attention. One of the 
thorniest of all planning dilemmas is presented 
by traffic, and the problem here is 
a microcosm of some of the larger problems 
of the parks as a whole. Most 
visitors to all types of countryside park 
come by car, and their recreation is 
centred around the car. If the answer 
were simply to provide the roads and 
car parks they need, and allow and 
encourage the traffic to come, many of the 
essential qualities of the parks would be 
destroyed. 

The demands of conservation and 
recreation can probably best be satisfied 
by a careful policy of " organising " the 
traffic, bearing in mind also the transport 
needs of ·the loca·l community. A valuable 
experiment in integrated traffic management 
of this kind-" Routes for People " 
has been carried out in the Peak District. 

The nature of, and current lack of planning 
control over, forestry operations in 
parks is a further cause for grave concern. 
This is especially the case with the 
operations of private groups or companies 
who are aided by handsome fiscal 
concessions and grants, and whose con cern 
is purely with profitability and not 
with landscape value or amenity. Much 
of the planting of bare land carried out 
by such groups in recent years has been 
incongruous and unsightly. The onlyrestraint is a small financial one, for some 
of the grants are subject to !Forestry Commission 
approval ; the concessions are 

available anyway. In this light, it is 
particularly .alarming that the Government's 
response to Sandford specifically 
excluded the possibility of strengthening 
the planning procedures for forestry. 

In future, there should be a clear degree 
of public control over all forestry operations 
within the parks: forestry proposals, 
by the Commission or by others, should 
be brought within the planning system ; 
all proposals should be subject to the 
approval of the park authority ; there 
should be .a process of consultation and 
agreement between the Forestry Commission 
and the park authorities ; and 
there should be particularly strict supervision 
of private operators. 

The agricultural use of previously nonagricultural 
land should also be broughtwithin planning control-agriculture, like 
forestry, lies outside the planning system 
at present-and this should be particularly 
enforced in the case of bull-dozed tracks. 

In addition, greater use ought to be made 
of land management agreements and also, 
where necessary, of access agreements.
The emphasis should still be on a voluntary 
process but, in both these cases, compulsory 
legal powers should exist in 
reserve, as they do at present for access. 
Access agreements co u I d also be 
expanded in scope, as has been suggested 
by the Ramblers' Association, to .apply to 
lakeside, woodland and riverbank areas. 
as well as the normally relevant " open"
areas of country. Moreover, such agreements 
ought to become more advantageous 
to the public, less being sacrificed 
to satisfy the landowner ; the basis on 
which compensation is calculated should 
be radically changed, to allow for provendetriment rather than hypothetical inconvenience. 


Another aspect of park managementwhich is of great importance is the provision 
of warden services, and the Sand-
ford Report rightly emphasises t.his. The 
role of a warden service, both professional 
and voluntary, in providing advice and 
help to visitors, and develop.jng co-operation 
with farmers and local people, can 
be invaluable. We should avoid the mis



take of creating a service which turns into 
a " police force of the countryside "; that 
would defeat the whole object. What can 
be achieved, however, was illustrated well 
by a Countryside Commission far Scotland 
project on Speyside, a pilot scheme 
which could eventually develop into a 
much wider warden or ranger service-
working closely with local agencies, and 
aiming to provide the public with advice, 
help and information, in as friendly a way 
as possible. The stress should pr·imarily be 
on a communication service for all the 
parties involved-forging links between 
the locality, its people, and the visitors. 

The hardest task of all in managing a 
national park, however, will be to link the 
development of the purposes and facilities 
of the park with the interests of the local 
community, trying to balance the often 
conflicting demands of national and local 
concerns. As a major priority, a long term 
strategy for employment and small scale 
industry in the communities within the 
parks must be drawn up ; rural communities 
cannot be left to become the 
preserve of bed-and-breakfast accom


modat-ion and second homes. In conjunction 
with the Council for Small 
Industries .jn Rural Areas (cosiRA) and 
the county and district councils, there 
should be regular consultation by the 
park authority-to monitor the development 
of the park area, chart a future 
programme, and ensure that the longterm employment needs of the community 
.are not forgotten. The park authoritywould have a direct responsibility to coordinate 
and superv.jse these discussions, 
and to endeavour to meet the appropriate 
employment needs of the area. The process 
of consultation should be formalised 
in statute, with a duty to report regularly 
on progress to the minister, at the same 
time as progress in all other aspects of the 
park is reported. 

In the day-to-day man age men t of 
recreation facilities in a park, the park 
authority has a particularly excitingopportunity to initiate new ventures. 
Much is being done at present, although 
the pattern is not consistent; guidedwalks, landscape trails, nature trails, 
information and interpretation services, 

the opening up of old canals, turningformer railway lines into walks, reopening 
old railways, creating picnic sites, 
restoring mills, setting up q u a r r y 
museums, holding farm open days, building 
" landmark " centres which present 
an area in all its .aspects and history in 
exhibitions, films, slides and talks. Other 
possibilities should be investigated, such 
as the provision of study facilities for 
students and researchers, and schemes for 
elderly and handicapped visitors. These 
should be a special priority: trails could 
be made for wheelchair use, and special 
trips and walks organised for the blind. 
There should also be close attention to the 
needs of schoolchildren-and even closer 
liaison with schools than exists at present.
All these projects should not, of course, 
be confined simply to formally des·ignated 
.areas ; but such areas do provide an ideal 
place at which to start. 

The principle behind all managemc.ntpolicies and decisions should be a verysimple one: to draw people to different 
areas, depending on the activity appropriate 
to that place. Some parts of the parks 
should be managed for relatively high-
density use and some for relatively low-
density use. An area by a roadside, for 
example, may have facilities for cars,
picnics, trails, sports, and perhaps boating, 
.and may be well populated ; a few 
miles away in the midst of the hills there 
may be silence and untampered beauty. 
Each area within a national park demands 
different use, and each person who comes 
demands different facilities. Satisfying and 
balancing these demands, and ensuring in 
the process that the beauty and wildness 
of the countryside, the most precious 
things of all, are not destroyed, is the 
principal task of a park management. 

conclusion 

The main purpose of this pamphlet has 
been to advocate the creation of a stronger 
park system for our countryside. We need 
such a system, and we need it urgently,
because the pressures on the most beautiful 
and valuable parts of our landscape 
and seashore, pressures of development 
and recreation alike, are becoming so 


strong that they need to he channel·led 
and controlled. It is no longer sufficient 
to leave things to custom and tolerance, 
or even, in the most important areas, to 
locally determined authorities. We need 
a coherent pattern of parks, on a nationwide 
scale and with a national purpose ; 
and we need an organisational structure 
with the aims and the powers that can 
br·ing it to fruition, protecting and promoting 
the countryside as may be 
appropriate. 

It is a task of considerable politica-l importance 
and difficulty : not simply an 
" environmental " issue, but a problemrequiring political will and initiat·ive, for 
it c o n cern s the apportionment of 
resources, and the strengthening of public 
c o n t r o 1, and the improvement of 
inadequate provision, and the balancingof different and often conflict-ing demands. 
For too long it has been regarded as an 
easy, agreeable area of public policy ; 
that in itself is perhaps a sign that not 
enough has been done. 

What has been suggested here is a set of 
tentative goals, a possible strategy for 
improvement. It is by no means an 
attempt to burden our countryside with 
a rigid structure or an inflex-ible bureaucracy 
or endless classification. It is rather 
an attempt to ensure that the means exist, 
flexible and responsive, by which we can 
guarantee that the beauty and value will 
be there for those people who come to the 
countryside to walk or to look or too seek 
enjoyment. It is for these people that our 
parks are created and organised ; it is for 
the schoolchi·ldren who can begin to 
explore environments different from those 
in which they live ; it is .for those who 
want the chance to find, for a while perhaps, 
freedoms and values they can find 
nowhere else. If we have too little regard 
for these values now, we may find that 
when we need them most-and we shall 
increasingly need them-they are no 
longer there. 

Meanwhile, at Government level, there is 
no clear national statement of policy for 
the countryside, no sense oif direction, 
and little assessment of prior·ities. The 
debate that has arisen in the aftermath 

of the Sandford Report deserves a more 
vigorous response than it has yet received, 
and a more vocal one. 

The task of creating a stronger parksystem, in the context of a clearer policy 
for the countryside as a whole, is one o.f 
immense importance, important not only 
now but for the future. This country of 
ours has some of the most beautiful and 
some of the most fragile country&iode in 
the world. The least we can do is to use 
it, and care for it, not only with affection, 
but with wisdom too. 


6. summary of main 
recommendations 
1. The creation of a clear tiered park 
system: country parks, regional parks 
and national parks. Areas of OutstandingNatural Beauty as dedicated areas with 
stricter planning controls, but without 
formal park status. Closer Iiaison between 
countryside park authorities and urban 
parks. 
2. The primary purpose of national 
parks to be conservation; the other 
statutory aims to be provision for 
recreation, .and concern for the economic 
needs of the locality. A statutory duty to 
report to Secretary of State or minister 
regularly on progress on these fronts. It 
must, however, be spelled out clearly that 
the principal focus -of administration is 
to be the national rather than the local 
importance of the area. 
-3. Creation of national parks in Scotland. 
Designation of further national 
parks in England and W a I e s, as 
appropriate. 

4. Each national park to be the responsibil-
ity of its own independent planning 
board, not a committee of the countycouncil. Each board should have its own 
staff. Members of the board to be appointed 
two thirds by the relevant minister, 
one third by the county or regionalcouncil(s). A voluntary advisory council 
to monitor progress on a regional basis. 
5. Other boards to be established on a 
regional scale, for all the regional and 
country parks in a region ; members to be 
appointed one third by the relevant minister, 
two thirds by county or regionalauthorities. 
6. A co-ordinating authority to be 
formed out of the present Countryside 
Commiss·ions and other agencies, with 
responsibility for countryside policy in all 
its aspects, and section responsibilities for 
different policy areas-with a special unit 
specifically concerned with conservation, 
recreation and national parks. 
7. The appointment of a minister with 
special responsibility for countrysidepolicy and parks. This minister to be 
called to account annually for .the exercise 
of his/her responsibiloities under 
Secbion II of the Countrysi.de Act I968, 
as suggested by the Countryside Review 
Committee. 

8. Creation of ·a park service for the 
staffing of all parks in the countryside. 
9. The House of Commons Expenditure 
Committee's suggestion of a sliding 
scale for Exchequer contr.jbutions to 
national park authorities to be adopted. 
10. Na:bional Pa·rk Authorities il:o have 
full planning powers within their area, 
but a statutory duty to consult with the 
local authority. Development proposals 
to be stringently scrutinised, and the onus 
to be on the developer to prove his case. 
Before a major development is permitted, 
a set of criter-ia-to prove its essential 
nature and to show that the effects can be 
mitigated-to be closely examined. 
II. Progressive acquisibion of land bythe national park authority, especially in 
the most beautiful and important areas. 
I2. Progressive reduction of defence 
land holdings in national parks. 

13. Bringing forestry operations, and 
agricultural use af non-agricultural land, 
within olanning control. Stronger requirements 
on building materials and designs 
used in park areas. 
14. Clear powers for national parkauthorities to organise the traffic within 
the park, creating a " hierarchy " of road 
uses (as Sandford sugge ts) and prohibiting 
traffic altogether in some case . 
Improvement of public transport services 
to the parks, especially at weekends : 
expansion of postbus services. 
15. Compulsory legal powers to exist in 
reserve for management agreements, as 
well as for access agreements. Access 
agreements and orders to be broadened 
in scope, to include woodland , lakeside 
and riverside areas. Compensation to be 
paid, in all access agreements, only on 
grounds of proven detriment, rather than 
hypothetical -inconvenience. 

recent fabian pamphlets 


research series 


320 Nicholas Falk, Haris Martinos 
321 David Eversley 
322 Paul Lewis and others 
327 Howard Glennerster (ed) 
328 Anne Corbett 
329 Rosalind Brooke 
330 Tony K.lug331 Chris Ralph 
332 Roy Manley, Helen Hastings 
333 Nicholas Bosanquet 
334 Carl Wilms Wright 
335 Vincent Cable 
336 Christopher Parsons 

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440 Barbara Castle NHS revisited 30p442 William Brown, Keith Sissop A positive incomes .policy 40p444 Sue Ashtiany Britain's migrant workers 50p445 John Tilley Changing prospects for direct labour 40p446 I ohn Gyford, Richard Baker Labour and local politics SOp447 Muir Gray and others A policy for warmth 55p448 Lisanne Radice Reforming the House of Commons 50p449 Rod Northawl, Richard Corbett Electing Europe's first parl'iament 60p 
450 Colin Phipps What future for the Falklands ? 50p 
451 Dianne Hayter The labour party: crisis and prospects 60p452 B. Gould, J. Mills, S. Stewart A competitive pound 70p 
453 Nicholas Falk Think small: enterprise and the economy 75p 
454 Society of Labour Lawyers Legal services for all 70p 
455 David Watkins Industrial common ownership 65p 

young fabian pamphlets 

37 David R. Allan Socialising the company 50p 
38 Young Fabian steel group Crisis in steel 30p 
42 Martin Smith Gypsies :where now ? 40p 
43 David Heald Making devolution work 70p 
44 Melvyn Westlake World poverty: the growing contlict 70p 
45 Geoff Harris A wider Europe 50p 
46 David Elliott The Lucas Aerospace workers' campaign 50p 
47 Tom Schuller Education through life 65p 

books 

R. H.S. Crossman and others New Fabian Essays cased £1.75 
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George Cunningham (ed) Britain and the world in the 1970s cased £3.00 

national parks 
Chris Smith argues that our countryside, especially in its most beautiful 
parts, is coming under increasing pressure from visitors and developers 
alike. There is an urgent need to create a viable system of parks in the 
countryside to help preserve our heritage for the good of all. The pamphlet 
describes the present park system in Britain, analyses its weaknesses, and 

delineates the conflicting values arising from the demands for local use, for 
visitor access, for development, and for recreation. Above all, it stresses 
that under the present system creating a national park is a relatively mean


ingless exercise. A much stronger framework is needed. 

After a discussion of the various reports recently issued on countryside 
policy, the author outlines a series of proposals for reviving our park system 
and countryside provision in general. He argues for a clear network of parks; 
an administrative structure with a wider, more national composition; a 
park service to provide proper staffing ; the appointment of a Minister for 
the countryside ; progressive land acquisition in the national parks and 
park authorities with greater powers and responsibilities in planning, traffic 
management, forestry and employment. Only by a strategy of this kind can 
we provide adequate protection for our countryside and in so doing revitalise 
a traditionally important-but recently neglected--part of Labour 
thinking. 

fabian society 

The Fabian Socie:y eXIsts to further socialist education and research. It is 
affiliated to the labour Party, both nationally and locally, and embraces all 
shades of socialist opinion within its ranks -left, right and centre. 
Since 1884 the Fabian Society has enrolled thoughtful socialists who are 
prepared to discuss the essential questions of democratic socialism and 
relate them to practical plans for building socialism in a changing world. 
Beyond this the Society has no collective policy. It puts forward no resolutions 
of a political character. The Society's members are active in their 
labour parties, trade unions and co-operatives. They are representative 
of the labour movement, practical people concerned to study and discuss 
problems that matter. 

The Society is organised nationally and locally. The national Society, 
directed by an elected Executive Committee, publishes pamphlets and 
holds schools and conferences of many kinds. local Societies-there are 
one hundred of them-are self governing and are lively centres of discussion 
and also undertake research. 

Enquiries about membership should be sent to the General Secretary, Fabian 
Sociey, 11 Dartmouth Street, london SW1 H 9BN : telephone 01 930 3077 
(01 222 8877 from Spring 1979) . 

Cover design by Dick Leadbetter. Printed by Civic Press limited (nJ), 
Civic Street, Glasgow G4 9RH ISBN 7163 0456 2 ISSN 0307 7535