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The South Downs
CPRE Sussex has welcomed the great news on 30th March 2009 that the South Downs has been declared a National Park. Working with other groups in the South Downs Campaign, we have fought for this for nearly twenty years, and are delighted it has at last come to fruition almost exactly 60 years since National Parks themselves became possible under the 1949 Act, itself the result of a long CPRE campaign.
The National Park will be established broadly along the lines proposed by the Countryside Agency seven years ago and will bring greater protection and funding to the area. The Western Weald, Ditchling and Lewes have now all been included in the designation.
With the inclusion of the Western Weald, the Park will ensure that this important landscape is properly protected from inappropriate development, overcoming the concern that loss of the designation as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty could cause adverse effects.
A new National Park Authority will be formed, and is expected to come into power in 2011. With the demands for new housing and large-scale development in the South East, the National Park Authority will need to be a strong guardian of the South Downs . CPRE Sussex will look to work with the new body and the many organisations of the South Downs Campaign to ensure its success.
CPRE Sussex has strongly supported the South Downs Campaign in pressing for a boundary to the South Downs National Park which would not exclude the Western Weald, Ditchling and Lewes.
We joined with CPRE Hampshire and many other organisations in giving evidence to the re-opened Public Inquiry last year. The Inspector submitted his report to DEFRA in Autumn 2008 and we hope for an announcement from the Minister in May 2009.
More details are available on the Planning Inspectorate website.
We urged residents to respond to the consultation to ensure the government hears loud and clear that the revised boundary, if approved, will seal the fate of large tracts of our beautiful Sussex countryside. Without the protected status of a National Park, areas such as the western Weald and Ditchling are sure to be subjected to death by a thousand cuts through piecemeal development and encroachment. Once we have lost our countryside under concrete it cannot be replaced
The South Downs extend from Winchester in Hampshire and across the breadth of Sussex reaching the coast at Eastbourne . The characteristic chalk ridge dominates much of Sussex , however the scarp slopes with their heathland landscape to the north also play an important role in the familiar Downland landscapes. The Downs and their environs form extensive areas of natural beauty, combining a wide range of landscape characteristics of national importance.
Protected as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) an estimated 32 million people visit the Downs annually for informal countryside recreation. Walking, horse riding and cycling are just some of the many ways in which residents and visitors alike enjoy this unique area.
Close to large areas of conurbation within the South East (ie the Coastal Plain, London and its suburbs) it forms an essential and well used recreational lung which it is essential to maintain in such a heavily populated region.
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