A government planning inspector has recommended that a new national park in the south of England be restricted in size. The proposed South Downs National Park in West Sussex and east Hampshire will now exclude parts of the western Weald, leaving them open to development. The original larger area was agreed by the Countryside Agency and designated by the government in 2002. The idea of designating the South Downs as a national park was first put forward in 1947. The consultation process was restarted in July 2007 after the planning inspector’s recommendation to reduce the national park by 23%.
Bill Bryson, the American author and president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) said: "This countryside is some of England's finest, and one of the glories of the English landscape in all its variety...If this beautiful landscape is left out of the National Park, it will run the risk of being picked off by developers and lost forever." Which pretty much fits in with the government’s plans to bulldoze over anything green and replace it with mythical ‘social housing’ or in reality expensive housing developments as they will end up once the developers have their way.
[Via The Telegraph]
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