RSPB Senior Policy Officer Meriel Harrison reflects on the Westminster Government’s new action plan for National Parks and National Landscapes in England
Back in 2019 the findings of a major Landscapes Review led by Julian Glover were published, setting out a clear case for change to enable England’s National Parks and National Landscapes (formerly AONBs) to fulfil their potential. The Westminster Government’s proposals for implementing the Review’s findings were put to public consultation in 2022 and this week, the long-awaited consultation outcome has been published, providing an update on delivery to date and an action plan for the future.
Was it worth the wait? Well in short, there has been some positive progress – as we would hope, given that four years have passed since the Review concluded - and there are more good things promised in the new action plan, but it’s far from job done. What we’ve seen so far are steps in the right direction, but what we don’t have is the transformative leap in response to the scale of the nature and climate emergency that the Glover Review called for.
Government’s action plan highlights several areas of recent activity, not least the strengthening of legislative duties via the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act that passed into law in October. The Act has strengthened the duty on public bodies carrying out functions in or affecting National Parks or National Landscapes so that rather than merely having regard to protected landscape purposes, they must now seek to further those purposes. This is a change that protected landscape bodies and other stakeholders have long called for, and while a duty ‘to further’ rather than ‘seek to further’ would have been stronger, this still provides a much-needed underlining of the requirement for all relevant bodies to work to conserve and enhance nature in these places. The Act allows for regulations that would require public bodies to take a much more active role in Protected Landscape Management Plans, meaning they would have a duty to help implement the plan as well as in preparing it.
There is also provision for regulations that would require these Management Plans to set out how they will contribute to meeting Government’s environmental targets. Again, these are really positive developments; yet both of these provisions depend on a Secretary of State making the necessary regulations; and while Ministers have promised this will be done, no timetable has yet been set out.
Without clarity on when the regulations are coming, much depends on the Outcomes Framework for protected landscapes that is still awaiting publication. It’s crucial that this Framework is explicit in terms of the contributions that protected landscapes, both collectively and individually, will make towards Government’s nature and climate targets. This must include species recovery targets, as well as those targets that have been set for improvements in the condition of protected sites in England.
There is more good news elsewhere in the action plan too: The Government has set up a Protected Landscapes Partnership of National Parks, National Landscapes and National Trails which is tasked with identifying opportunities for collaboration on nature recovery and climate change leadership through large-scale projects and sharing knowledge and evidence. There is also welcome additional investment in farming schemes, with the Farming in Protected Landscapes programme extended and expanded, and 34 Landscape Recovery projects – most covering parts of protected landscapes – shortlisted for enrolment.
The package of actions has come with a slug of additional funding for protected landscapes, with the Government saying it will provide an additional £10million over the coming years. This is great news and will be warmly welcomed by cash-strapped landscape bodies, but there is still a need to move beyond short-term measures that fail to give landscapes the certainty and ongoing core funding they need to invest properly in skilled staff who can deliver long-term action for nature as part of business as usual. The funding boost also comes against a backdrop of years of cuts to core budgets, and it is far from clear whether Government plans to mobilise private finance will prove successful in closing the current gap between the level of funding landscapes can currently access, and what’s needed to fulfil their potential.
One major stumbling block in how Government has responded to the consultation findings is the failure to amend the purposes of protected landscapes, as was proposed by the Review and supported by the majority of those who responded to the consultation. This could have given protected landscapes a clear objective to conserve, restore and enhance nature; and ensured that other purposes and duties cannot be pursued in ways that damage nature. The RSPB was one of many stakeholders who pushed for this change to be made during the passage of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act, yet Government refused to do so. As changes to purposes were keystones among the recommendations of the Glover Review, they remain unfinished business that we hope a future Government will attend to.
Probably the most headline-grabbing announcement this week was the promise to designate a new National Park in England, repeating a commitment made in the 2019 Conservative Manifesto. There are new National Parks currently in the works in Wales and Scotland and what they all offer is the opportunity to show what a protected landscape designated and governed with nature and climate at its heart looks like from the outset – this opportunity must be seized. It’s also vital that when expanding the networks of protected landscapes, governments provide extra funding for the newly designated areas rather than spreading the existing funding pots still further and taking money away from the existing protected landscapes.
Past polling by RSPB has shown that wildlife and nature are the most valued features of our National Parks, and nature restoration is the public’s one priority for these landscapes. Protected landscapes have high ambitions to deliver for nature, and the consultation responses published this week provide further proof that the majority of people and stakeholders want them to be given the tools and resources to do so. Government must take heed of this clear message, deliver its action plan at pace and go still further to set these special places up for success.