£425,000 black hole hits Park ambitions

THE GUARDIANS of one of the country’s most outstanding landscapes have been told they must review their ambitions after a £425,000 black hole in their future plans emerged.

Members of the North York Moors National Park Authority were told they would either need to cut back on projects, earn more income, successfully campaign for more Government funding or make savings in order to balance the budget over the next three years.

The meeting heard that while the authority had attracted large amounts of grants from external bodies to bolster its Government funding, it now faced “a crunch point” over its resources to deliver all the schemes in its business plan.

A key issue includes how much externally-funded work, income generating work and volunteering could be managed, given that the authority’s staff would be needed to help run those projects at the same time as maintaining the authority’s statutory functions.

Authority officers said its budget setting exercise would also need to consider how priority projects could be run “without impacting unduly on quality of delivery and staff welfare”.

Officers said large-scale projects such as environmental work in the Rye Valley and improvements to Sutton Bank Visitor Centre would need careful consideration.

In addition, the authority faces pressures as the 1.72 per cent increase in Government funding was lower than pay and price rises and several sources of income were not expected to grow.