National Parks are a special purpose local authority. They are responsible to the Assembly in Wales and DEFRA in England. In Wales the committees of the three National Parks (The Brecon Beacons, Pembrokeshire Coast and Snowdonia) comprise of two thirds appointed by the local unitary authority and one third appointed by the Welsh Assembly Government. In England a number of parish councillors are also appointed to the committee.
There has been an argument that the committees, which have powers to take planning decisions, determine rights of way and maintain and protect the natural beauty of the areas the Parks are set in, do not often represent the views of local people.
In Scotland, direct elections have been introduced for the membership of National Park Committees and there has been some success on that front. This is most notable in terms of the greater level of accountability that the Committees have to members of the public and the improved cooperation and engagement that now exists between the Committees and the local communities in which the parks are based. Furthermore, far from there being little interest in these elections, voter turnout is often high, the elections raise awareness of the issues facing national parks and they are often strongly contested events.
This is not to say that the committees do not reflect the views of the local communities. Local Unitary Authorities, Parish Councillors, DEFRA appointees and WAG appointees in most cases do a very good job of reflecting the needs of the local communities. However, directly elected members would bring a freshness to the parks that they would go on to represent, would create greater community engagement and would, as has been the case in Scotland, raise awareness of the issues that affect these areas of outstanding beauty.
That is why the recent decision by Huw Irranca-Davies MP, Minister for Marine and Natural Environment at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), taken on the 16th July, not to allow the direct election of committee members is so disappointing. While I can appreciate that there are some measures already in place to address some concerns about local accountability, these do not go far enough. The publishing of reports and newsletters, undertaking feedback and providing feedback and hosting consultative forums for local residents, whilst clearly important aspects of accountability, do not go nearly as far as the direct election of a proportion of committee members would do.
Clearly some, if not the majority, of committee members need to be appointed based on the need for expertise in certain areas. But in far too many cases local residents who find themselves with National Park boundaries often feel removed from the democratic process and unable to effectively challenge the decisions made by the various parks’ committees. Had the Minister opted for an element of direct election this issue would have been largely addressed. As it is a big opportunity to get local people more involved in issues ranging from planning to tackling climate change and halting biodiversity loss has been missed.
I hope that when this issue is revisited that the same mistake will not be made again.
(The written ministerial statement by Huw Irranca-Davies MP can be found here)
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