NATIONAL PARK PLAN 'BACK ON COURSE'

It should, says the Campaign, allow the South Downs National Park designation process to get back on track.

Last week the Natural England and Rural Communities (NERC) Act received Royal Assent. It contained two sections which clarified the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act and the approach to defining 'natural beauty' in the designation of National Parks.

The designation of the South Downs National Park was put on hold by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) earlier this year as a result of a legal challenge in the New Forest.

A SDC spokesman said: 'Here the judge ruled that some land included in the National Park should be excluded, while at the same time he introduced a new definition of natural beauty into the designation criteria for national parks which implied that land clearly shaped by man cannot be considered for inclusion.

'This was clearly at odds with the way that the law has been interpreted over the past 50 years which has seen 11 National Parks and 40 Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) established.

This point was accepted by all the main parties in the House of Commons when it debated the NERC Bill.

'The SDC hopes that the decision-making process can be resumed in the near future so that there can be a decision in principle on the South Downs National Park this year, which should enable a National Park Authority to be established in 2008.'

Robin Crane, Chairman of the SDC, added: 'It was a great shame that this maverick judgment happened when it did, but the government should be congratulated in restoring the law to how it has always been applied.

'Everyone knows that both National Parks and AONBs, both designated for their natural beauty, are landscapes heavily influenced by man - but the judgment called this all into question.

'It is often man's influence that can make a landscape so special and iconic '“ imagine the Yorkshire Dales without its dry stone walls, or the Cotswolds without its villages of honey coloured stone.

'Now the goalposts are back to where they have always been, the SDC is calling for a decision on the principle by the end of the year.

'It is 60 years since the South Downs were first proposed as a National Park, we don't want to have to wait another 60 before we get there.'