England's New Forest to Get National Park Status

LONDON, UK, June 29, 2004 (ENS) - Britain is about to get its eighth national park - the New Forest in the south of England. After a lengthy public inquiry process to allow local authorities to express their objections, Rural Affairs Minister Alun Michael announced the designation of the new park on Monday.

The New Forest is a medieval royal deer hunting area created in 1079 by William I, known as William the Conqueror. It will be England's smallest national park at 571 square kilometers (220 square miles), with an estimated population of 38,000 living within its boundaries.

The inhabitants retain some of the rural practices conceded by the Crown in medieval times such as the pasturing of ponies, cattle, pigs and donkeys in the open forest, rights that will be maintained in the forest's new role as a national park.

Ponies in the New Forest (Photos © Graham Cooper)

"Our national parks have a vital role conserving our natural heritage, but conservation alone is not enough," the minister said. "The parks must balance environmental priorities with those of communities."

The local parishes and other local groups have been opposed to a national park designation, telling the inquiry that it was a "politically motivated imposition by central government," without any public demand for a national park. They said it was clear "throughout the staged and inadequate ‘consultation process’ that the principle of a national park was non-negotiable."

Julian Lewis, the Conservative MP representing New Forest East, said that he had received some representations in favor of the status quo, many in favor of a tailor-made solution, but very few in favor of a standard National Park Authority.

He told the inquiry, "This indicates a strong local feeling that a National Park is being forced onto a community which does not want it and finds it insufficiently responsive to the needs of a working forest which is much more than just a park of any description."

The boundary of the old Deer Park near Lyndhurst, first mentioned in the 13th century.

The government position is that the new National Park Authority would work collaboratively with the local community "by partnership and persuasion rather than by regulation," the inquiry report states.

The government told the inquiry that it would not start from scratch, abandoning or duplicating the work of existing agencies or ignoring their achievements. It would encourage "an integrated approach to strategic plans and programs, allowing resources to be pooled, linked and supplemented across the whole of the designated area."

In 1999, ministers asked the Countryside Agency to consider designation of the New Forest as a national park. The agency held working groups to look at various issues such as governance and planning. It conducted a non-statutory public consultation and a statutory consultation with the local authorities on the boundary and administrative arrangements before submitting the formal Designation Order to the Secretary of State in February 2002.

Under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 a public inquiry must be called if any local authority objects to a Designation Order. With objections from seven local authorities, an inquiry was held from October 2002 to April 2003.

View from highest point in the Forest - Piper's Wait

The Verderers of the New Forest, a statutory body empowered by the New Forest Acts, regulates the agricultural use of the forest by commoners, and through the Verderers’ Court, controls almost all forms of development on the common lands managed by the Forestry Commission.

Acting to conserve the forest, the Verderers have been a restraining influence on the Forestry Commission’s desire to enhance recreational facilities.

The Verderers have approved over 100 car parks and extensive camping facilities in the New Forest over the past 30 years. But recently they have decidedthat the New Forest is over its capacity to absorb recreational demands without damage and have been resisting new demands. Some car parks and camp sites have been closed, and the Verderers have kept mobile phone masts, pipelines, oil drilling, and road development out of the forest.

The Verderers’ concern is that under a National Park Authority the balance of interests and loyalties could swing away from a state of equilibrium with the Forestry Commission and give too much weight to "inappropriate" decision makers and interests.

Roy Foster, the Inspector appointed to hold the New Forest park inquiry, recommends in his report that the Environment Act 1995 should be changed to allow the New Forest National Park Authority to "bring about a better balance of interests" than a standard national park authority (NPA) would allow.

New Forest view towards Windmill Hill and Frogham from Latchmore

He also recommends that "the Verderers’ Court should be granted powers over NPA activities on the common Crown lands similar to those of the Forestry Commission to prevent erosion of the Verderers’ veto over development on the New Forest lands.

Dr. Andy Brown, who heads English Nature, the government body responsible for the natural environment within national parks, said, “This is history in the making. The National Park Authority is in a good position to take the New Forest forward in a way that will bring together wildlife, people and the local economy in an integrated and positive way."

The New Forest is a sanctuary for wildlife. The landscape has remained largely unchanged over the centuries, said English Nature, with thousands of hectares of ancient woodland, heathland, mires and wetland providing a healthy landscape for species that struggle to find a foothold elsewhere.

Among the rarest species found in the New Forest are the Dartford warbler, nightjar and woodlark, as well as the threatened southern damselfly and stag beetle.

There are currently seven national parks in England, which cover around 7.6 percent of the landscape. The new New Forest National Park is expected to join them on April 1, 2006.