Blind Devotion

You'll get the gist quite quickly of what we think about the way the Assembly is taking our National Parks.

For the record we love being designated as a National Park. It does untold good for our local economy through tourism. This is just as well of course since traditional rural businesses like farming just don't support the number of people living here that they used to.

A common mistake politicians make though is to think that our countryside is the way it is because it is a National Park. No. It's always been like this, formed by farmers, landowners and the ebb and flow of humanity and commerce over thousands of years.

But the problem with National Parks is that we have the American concept stuck in our minds. That is a gallumphing great wilderness of nothing but beauty, bears and the odd winnebago weaving by. It just ain't like that. Pembrokeshire National Park is the most densely populated Park in the UK, studded with villages and even the odd town, fringed by oil giants, intersected by a busy waterway. In short it is full of people busy doing stuff.

Which is exactly why the National Park Planning Authority needs to recognise that fact. Our communities full of dynamic, busy people need to be protected and supported as much as the puffin, chough or bat. Fortunately, people can help themselves so you won't be needing to set up a web cam and exclusion zone around us so that we can breed in peace. All you'll need to do is ensure our businesses and communities have the same opportunities to grow and prosper as those a few hundred yards outside the notional line drawn up all those years ago.

Not much to ask I know. But you'd be surprised. A motion was put forward this week in the Senedd that sought to make it a duty of National Parks to support social and economic development within their boundaries. (Assembly Record Motion NDM4632 ). They made a good case and I certainly agree that if we are to have a National Park Authority in charge of our planning that we can take seriously then this is vital.

Sadly though the government saw things differently and anyway the debate focussed instead on the idea of improving democratic representation on the Park's Authority... also something we desperately need of course.

What was revealing in the debate however was the blind devotion the Minister who is responsible for Parks in Wales, Jane Davidson has to the National Parks as they are. "We strongly rely on the parks with regard to our sustainable development agenda, which is economic, social and environmental."

This from a minister who has encouraged the National Park Authority to pursue planning controls that would make sustainable building economically unviable. The latest Planning Guidance the Authority is hoping to dupe members to vote for concerns affordable housing.

Headline proposals include charging a £30,000 fee to anyone wishing to build their home in the Parks and insisting that high levels of affordable housing be built on developments regardless of evidence of local need... and when builders say this burden is too great to make quality building viable, the policy seeks to tell them "build cheaper, mate and stuff the sustainability!" I paraphrase but you get the gist.

The policy will if adopted suck economic value out of rural businesses based in the Park while neighbours a few hundred yards away have no such restrictions. Why? I don't know. They have never proved that there is a more acute problem with affordable housing in our neck of the woods.

Jane Davidson has protected the Pembrokeshire National Park Authority in the face of some pretty devastating criticism of its performance over the last few years. She has protected its budgets in the face of recent cuts... it must be getting the message that it can do no wrong in the eyes of the minister. Not a healthy environment in which to foster its own much needed improved performance.

Whatever happens, we are getting the distinct impression the Minister would like to halt all social and economic development in the Parks... perhaps she's gone all misty eyed and her mind has wandered to thoughts of Yosemite or Yellowstone.

Have any thoughts? Let me know.