Will Gove save Chilterns?
THE Chilterns is a frontrunner to be made a national park amid fears its beauty could be destroyed by development.
Local MP Cheryl Gillan is campaigning for it to be upgraded from the status of ‘area of outstanding natural beauty’.
The Chilterns AONB covers 322 square miles in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Oxfordshire. Dame Cheryl wrote on her website: ‘The Chilterns are under pressure not only from infrastructure projects like the HS2 railway but from the proposal to develop along the Oxford to Cambridge corridor.’
She said the chalk landscape was of ‘global importance’ and the ancient woodland was a ‘national treasure which needs careful guardianship’.