Features

Downs delight

You can almost picture Chris Todd rubbing his eyes to check that he’s really awake: “We couldn’t have dreamed of getting as much as we have. We’ve got the Western Weald and the ‘Bentley nib’; we’ve got Lewes; we’ve got Ditchling. And we’ve got nearly all the additional areas proposed by the Inspector.” Working at the heart of the South Downs Campaign, Chris has been living the National Park crusade since 2001. But, to understand the scale of the fight for the Downs and the full significance of the Government’s announcement, you need to dig rather deeper – for this marathon campaign begins with a tangled story of defeat snatched from the jaws of victory. Calls for a body to manage the South Downs go back as far as the late-19th century, but the National Parks movement really kicked off in 1929 with a ‘memo’ to the Prime Minister from CPRE (now the Campaign to Protect Rural England). Ten years later the world was at war, and it wasn’t until 1947 that the Government commissioned Sir Arthur Hobhouse to look into the whole business of National Parks and outdoor recreation. The South Downs were among the Hobhouse Committee’s recommendations for 12 national parks and, in 1949, the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act finally passed into law.

Decades in the making

Job done, then? Not a bit of it. The Peak District National Park was up and running by 1951, and another eight Parks quickly followed. But, says Ruth Chambers of the Campaign for National Parks (CNP), “the South Downs were rejected in 1956 on the grounds that their recreational value had been ‘considerably reduced by extensive cultivation’ during the Second World War.” The Government’s attentions moved on. England and Wales now boasted nine national parks, and The Broads gained similar status in 1989. But the calls to deliver on all 12 of Hobhouse’s original recommendations were never completely silenced, and the South Downs Campaign (SDC) was launched by a coalition of pressure groups in 1990. The Ramblers joined a few months later, and the SDC grew steadily under its chairman Robin Crane to include more than 150 national, regional and local organisations. Chris Todd takes up the story: “In 1995, Brighton Council tried to sell off its vast downland estate, bought a century earlier to protect the town’s landscape and water supply. There was a massive public outcry and the sale of the Downs was stopped, but the Council’s actions highlighted what was at stake. We thought that the Downs were safe – and they weren’t! ” The affair was a wake-up call for campaigners, and a local farmer sparked renewed pressure for a national park by ploughing up protected downland at Offham, near Lewes, during the 1997 General Election campaign. Two years later, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott announced the creation of national parks for the New Forest and the South Downs as a Millennium gift to the nation. After more than half a century, it seemed that the Hobhouse Committee’s list would be completed at last.

A series of challenges

Over in the New Forest, the National Park took shape fairly swiftly, and the designation order was confirmed during the last few days of the South Downs inquiry. But then, just to liven things up, the owners of Hinton Park challenged the inclusion of their estate in the National Park. The High Court upheld the owners’ case that the land was not open for informal outdoor recreation – a key purpose of national parks – and quashed the designation of Hinton Park. The decision threatened the whole legal basis of every national park created since the 1950s. The Government acted swiftly to clarify the law, but a new crisis for the South Downs was already taking shape. Delayed by the Hinton Park case, the Inspector’s report was finally published in July 2007. Within its pages lay a recommendation to exclude the Western Weald, an area that enclosed nearly a quarter of the proposed National Park. “The Western Weald was part of a much larger Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, ” says Ramblers campaigns co-ordinator David Murray. “If left outside the National Park, some areas could have lost their existing protection, creating a threat to this exceptional landscape.” The SDC went into overdrive. “The Inspector had based his recommendations on the findings of his landscape assessor, ” says David. “But the assessor’s conclusion that the Wealden landscape wasn’t compatible with a downland National Park was, quite simply, mistaken.” The Inspector also judged that recreation in the Western Weald would be seriously affected by the A3 dual carriageway and the towns of Petersfield and Liss. At a re-opened public inquiry in spring 2008, the SDC produced a sentence-bysentence demolition of the landscape assessor’s findings. Meanwhile, the Ramblers worked closely with the SDC on recreational issues. Interviews with Ramblers members and other countryside users showed their enthusiasm for the Wealden countryside, and helped to refute the Inspector’s conclusions about recreation in the Western Weald. After the Inquiry, the SDC co-ordinated a massive publicity campaign to press home the arguments. Members of the public bombarded the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs with some 20,000 picture postcards, and CPRE President Bill Bryson delivered a giant postcard signed by leading SDC supporters, including Ramblers President Floella Benjamin.

The perfect campaign

And so, 80 years after that first ‘memo’ to the Prime Minister, and 60 years after the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act received Royal Assent, the Environment Secretary Hilary Benn finally gave the go-ahead for the South Downs to become England’s tenth national park. David Murray reflects on what has been achieved: “The campaign couldn’t really have been much better. It’s a tribute to Chris Todd and our partners in the SDC, who’ve worked really well together as a group. There will be more public consultation on six small additional areas – but with 99% of the boundary secure, we look forward to the Government’s final confirmation as quickly as possible.” The decision comes at a time of widespread disquiet about creeping development in and around the South Downs. Besides headline-grabbing schemes such as the Glyndebourne wind turbine, pressure for new housing and associated infrastructure throughout the South East is a serious concern. The cumulative effect of many smaller, local changes also dilutes the character of the area. Without the strong protection of a national park, the Downs could easily suffer ‘death by a thousand cuts’.

Source of inspiration

Official designations and long years of campaigning in stuffy committee rooms are a stark contrast to the fresh air and freedom of the Downs. From the soaring white cliffs of the Seven Sisters near Eastbourne to the wooded Wealden countryside and meandering Hampshire chalk streams, these glorious landscapes have inspired generations of writers, artists and naturalists. For this is the landscape of the Bloomsbury Group of writers, painters and intellectuals, who met regularly at Charleston Farmhouse in the shadow of Firle Beacon in the early 20th century. And of the Reverend Gilbert White, who, in 1789, published his classic Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne from his home at The Wakes, sheltered beneath the famous beech hangers that inspired so much of his work. And it is the landscape of Jane Austen, who wrote Emma, Mansfield Park and Persuasion at Chawton Cottage, near Alton. Today, these literary landmarks are open for you to visit. Each one stands close to a long-distance walking route, set in a landscape that’s finally secure after decades of campaigning by dedicated Ramblers volunteers and their SDC partners. And today, says David Murray, “we need the South Downs National Park more than ever, because so many people now live in the South East of England. That’s why we’re so ecstatic – the new Park will give millions of people easy access to a sense of remoteness in this crowded region.”

Further information

South Downs Online is packed with information about planning your visit to the area, and offers practical advice on transport, accommodation and walking routes. The website Diamonds in the Landscape was established to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949. It’s an invaluable source of information, providing resources and details of special events happening in the Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, National Trails and National Nature Reserves that the Act helped to create.

• This entry was posted on: Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
• Filed under: Campaigns/Issues, Features, Walk Summer 2009
• Tags: access, campaigns, National Park, South Downs, South Downs Campaign
• Follow responses with this feed: RSS 2.0
• You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.