NEW FOREST NATIONAL PARK - views of Julian Lewis MP

Most people in the New Forest did not want the standard National Park model which we are to get. That does not mean they did not want the New Forest protected, but they wanted it to be protected in the future, the way in which it has traditionally been protected in the past: through special legislation. they were concerned that if a National Park model were imposed on the New Forest, it would lead to rigidity, bureaucracy and the overriding of the former consensual way of running the New Forest, by a compulsory way of running it.

It was never the case that the public inquiry into the proposed New Forest National Park would turn it down, on the basis that a National Park was not the best way forward for the New Forest. The purpose of that public inquiry, as I said at the time, was simply to see whether the New Forest measured up to the criteria necessary to become a National Park, and of course it did.

Much will now depend upon the sensitivity and self restraint of the new National Park Authority when it is set up, and I shall do my best to help the new arrangements to work for the benefit of the Forest itself and of my constituents