Western Daily Press (Saturday)
About time we reflect on what has been lost
Celebrations to mark 70 years of our national parks are all very well, Bridgwater and West Somerset Conservative MP Ian Liddell-Grainger tells Farming Minister Robert Goodwill – but they shouldn’t distract from the reality of what the parks can be like to live in
DEAR Robert I was, as you may imagine, more than somewhat chuffed that my constituency was chosen to host the bash marking 70 years of national parks this week. Indeed I can think of no more idyllic setting for such an event to be held than the meadows around Simonsbath in the very heart of Exmoor.
And we are all, actually, entitled to a little self-congratulation for the fact that since the end of the last war we have managed to protect and preserve a portfolio of the finest landscape jewels this country has to offer.
But behind the speeches, the flagwaving, the bowing and curtseying and the cream teas lies the truth that the last 70 years have not been kind to Exmoor in many ways. We have lost village shops, village schools, bus services, doctors’ surgeries and village police stations.
We have been hit by an influx of
second homeowners. I have nothing against them personally but they do not spend so much in the locality as full-time residents, hence the fact that it is those settlements with the highest proportion of second homes that have been the first to lose their village shops.
That trend is still continuing. Linked to the withdrawal of bus services it means that village life is pretty well barred to you unless you are a car owner and thus prepared to drive the five miles or so to the nearest shop for your milk, newspaper and other daily requisites.
I could go on to castigate Exmoor national park authority for allowing all this to happen but I know I shall only be met with the familiar rebuttal that it is not part of its brief to become concerned in the economic life of local communities.
I would argue, however, that if it isn’t then it should be. That it and the other national parks should have the ability to support, encourage and promote local businesses in order that we can retain villages as wellbalanced, dynamic economic units.
The alternative will be the gradual decay of vibrant settlements into villages where the houses are only intermittently occupied, and are totally devoid of any amenities for either the few remaining locals or the tourists: a grim prospect indeed.
This is also an opportune moment for me to stress how important it is that hill farming in the national parks must absolutely continue to be supported under whatever regime is eventually produced to manage and direct UK agriculture.
Conditions for Exmoor farmers are, after all, hardly less harsh than they were 70 years ago and in the interim a new set of challenges has presented itself, from clunking substandard broadband and internet services which threaten to further disadvantage them to a planning authority which appears happier strewing their path with hurdles, obstacles and objections rather than actually helping them modernise, become more efficient and adapt to the changing demands of the food chain.
My advice, therefore, to the national park authority would not be to sit back and gloat over 70 glorious years but to reflect on what has been lost; to stop trying to immobilise the hands of the clock in an effort to maintain Exmoor as some kind of agricultural theme park; and to take all possible steps to ensure that the park doesn’t revert to an unattractive wasteland dotted with ghost settlements.