So much more than a walk in the park

After 75 years, the job required of national parks has changed. They now need to be hothouses of Nature recovery, and it’s time we got on with it

- Julian Glover

FIVE years ago, I led an independent review for the Government into protected landscapes in England. We looked at all sorts of things, but the central question amounted to this: how can a system of national protection best serve the nation, while respecting local identities and the needs of people who live in national parks?

A glance into the COUNTRY LIFE archives could have saved us some time. Our question also troubled Parliament 75 years ago when it debated the now-revered legislation creating the system. ‘Will National Parks be national enough?’ worried an editorial of April 1949, as the government retreated during the passage of the law from more ambitious proposals. A few months later—with the bill now an Act—COUNTRY LIFE was disappointed. The law, a writer sniffed, ‘fails rather lamentably to fulfil the high hopes which were based on the report of the Hobhouse Committee [the document which gave birth to the legislation]’, adding that the new National Parks Commission was ‘somewhat lacking in distinction and prestige’.

I’ve had similar feelings of dismay watching momentum falter after our own review, in the four-and-a-bit years it has taken Defra to issue its final plan. ‘Government response to the Landscapes Review: not worth the wait’ was the sharp reply from the Campaign for National Parks when ministers eventually came up with their brief answer last November.