The National Park Management Plan is important because it will form an agreement amongst the organisations and all interested individuals for how this protected countryside will be looked after and made easy to enjoy by people from all walks of life for the next quarter century.
This time, the plan includes measures to help the region to cope with climate change; aims for sharing the national park’s exceptional features with a much wider public, and work to balance the protection of wildlife and tranquillity against the need to encourage the kind of development that will encourage the local communities and the rural economy to thrive.
The new plan coincides with the 60th anniversary of the first Countryside Act in 1949, that set up national parks and other protected countryside for the benefit of people in the towns of post-War industrial Britain.
Because of its importance to the region and its far-reaching implications for future generations, Northumberland National Park Authority expects the proposals to have a big response. Northumberland National Park and its partners are keen to engage the public in their vision for the park and want to make the consultation a meaningful exercise. For the first time, the market towns of Alnwick, Wooler, Morpeth and Hexham – whose interests are closely linked with the uplands on their doorstep - are being included in the public consultation events over the next ten weeks.
Comments on the draft are welcome from everyone – from villages, towns and cities, young people and adults. Dates of the public meetings and a copy of the plan can found on Northumberland National Park's website at www.nnpa.org.uk/npmanagementplan and will be available next week in hard copy at libraries, national park visitor centres and information points around the park.
Dates and times of public consultation events
- Monday 9 February
Hexham, Tynedale Council, Prospect House at 6.30 pm
- Monday 2 March
Lanehead, Village Hall from 7 to 9 pm
- Tuesday 3 March
Berwick, Guild Hall from 7 to 9 pm
- Wednesday 4 March
Haltwhistle, Comrades Club from 7 to 9 pm
- Monday 9 March
Alnwick, Community Development Trust from 7 to 9 pm
- Tuesday 10 March
Morpeth, Storey Park Community Centre from 7 to 9 pm
- Thursday 12 March
Wooler, Cheviot Centre from 7 to 9 pm
- Monday 16 March
Harbottle, Village Hall from 7 to 8.30 pm
The previous plan was last revised in 2003 and the new proposals recognise the significant changes that have occurred in recent years.
The 405 tranquil square-miles of the National Park from Hadrian’s Wall to the Cheviots, with hills, moors, woodlands and river valleys rich in wildlife and history, are a unique asset for people in the North East to treasure and a magnet for tourism to the region.
