Help shape national park’s future
The North York Moors Authority wants to hear from residents and visitors as it plans for the next five years
IT IS an extraordinary landscape which has remained unchanged for centuries, capturing the imagination of authors, artists and a steady stream of visitors who love to walk among its stunning features and get lost in its beauty.
And now the North York Moors National Park Authority is taking a step forward, as it starts planning for the next five years, and wants to give people in the region the chance to contribute bold suggestions for its future. Brexit, the Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan and an overhaul of farm policy have offered an opportunity for the park to reinvent itself, while still keeping true to itself, and the authority wants to hear about what is important to visitors, residents and the next generation.
Chief executive Tom Hind said: “We’re kicking off an open engagement exercise with anybody who’s got an interest in the national park area, from residents who will have a really important role to play in giving us their voice about the part that they live in, through to conservation and environmental organisations.”
The suggestions will be taken into account when the national park team puts together its management plan.
The plan for the North York
Moors will guide not only the activities of the national park authority, but all those connected to the area, including local and national organisations, businesses and residents.
It sets out what conservation, farming, housing, tourism and transport should all look like in the years ahead, and how the national park should be left for the next generation.
The 2016 management plan remained fairly unchanged from the previous plan in 2012 but Mr Hind said 2021’s version offered the opportunity to make changes for the betterment of everyone. He said he wanted to harness the enthusiasm for the great outdoors that the public had developed over the last 12 months, including welcoming new visitors.
“We’ve seen the benefit national park spaces played in terms of social prescribing and improvements in mental health so that’s a big challenge but also opportunity.
“We’re open to all ideas. It’s really important that the national park looks to the future whilst also conserving what’s best about the past.
“We want to ensure that we do right by the cultural traditions and the heritage assets and the beauty of the landscape that has stood the test of time, but also recognise that national parks, like other landscapes, are not preserved in aspic.
“It’s about partnership and there are no right or wrong answers at this stage.”
Covering an area of 554 square miles, the national park has two national nature reserves, 840 Scheduled Monuments and more than 3,000 listed buildings.
Its world-famous scenery attracts an estimated 8.3 million visitors a year, who visit for the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, for the 26 miles of stunning coastline and the brooding moorland popular with walkers.
Go to the North York Moors website – www.northyorkmoors.org.uk/ – to take part.
We’re open to all ideas. It’s important the park looks to the future. Tom Hind, chief executive of North York Moors National Park Authority.