National Parks at 75: celebrating the ‘people’s charter for the open air’

As far back as the late eighteenth century, people were dreaming of something like national parks. William Wordsworth famously described the Lake District as “a sort of national property, in which every man has a right and interest who has an eye to perceive and a heart to enjoy”.

The world’s first National Park, Yellowstone, was founded in the United States in 1872. But it wasn’t until this day in 1949, Monday December 16, that a law was passed to create the first National Parks in Britain – the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act.

World War Two had only ended four years previously, and Britain was in the midst of an ‘Age of Austerity’ – some types of rationing were still in place. Yet big changes were underway. The National Health Service was born during these years. After the ravages of war, a huge effort was underway to rebuild the country, with the aim of creating ‘a land fit for heroes’.

In an era of smog-filled industrial cities, enabling ordinary people to have better access to green and open spaces, and protecting our natural and human heritage, was a huge part of this vision.

A ‘people’s charter’

Today we take it for granted that we can enjoy the British countryside through National Parks and other things that make the landscape more accessible, but it wasn’t always so.

The industrial revolution and the enclosure movement drove people into towns and cities, and in the nineteenth century Britain became the world’s predominantly nation. But people in towns and cities held on to visions of the land their ancestors had left, and found ways of keeping links to it alive through outdoor recreation: hiking, cycling, rambling, climbing.

Even so, obstacles and objections from landowners meant that the ability of ordinary people to access to the countryside could be limited and frustrating. Around the 1870s, this gave rise to the ‘right to roam’ movement, which expressed itself in lots of different ways.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, for example, a series of rallies were held in Winnats Pass in the Peak District calling for better access to the countryside. The 1932 mass trespass on Kinder Scout, also in the Peak District, proved to be instrumental, galvanising public opinion after the six young leaders were given prison sentences. Once World War Two was over, one of the government’s key priorities was opening up the outdoors.

In a speech to parliament, Lewis Silkin, the Minister responsible for the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949, set out the vision behind the legislation:

This is not just a bill.  It is a people’s charter—a people’s charter for the open air, for the hikers and the ramblers, for everyone who lives to get out into the open air and enjoy the countryside.  Without it they are fettered, deprived of their powers of access and facilities needed to make holidays enjoyable.  With it the countryside is theirs to preserve, to cherish, to enjoy and to make their own.

With the country still recovering from the ravages of the war, this ‘people’s charter’ was intended to be part of a ‘natural health service’ which would foster a national renewal and lay the foundations for improved health, wellbeing and access to nature in the future.

National Parks were also seen as vital to the protection of rare wildlife and cultural heritage, intended to preserve the ‘special qualities’ of beautiful landscapes by holding back urban sprawl and preserving their unique character.

The Peak District was designated the first national park in April 1951. It was followed by the creation of nine further national parks by the end of the decade across England and Wales. The Broads Authority, with similar powers to a national park, was created in 1988.

Scotland’s two national parks were designated by the devolved government following the passing of relevant legislation in 2000. The current family was completed with the designation of the New Forest in 2005 and the South Downs in 2010. There are currently no national parks in Northern Ireland.

Vision for the future

Today there are 15 National Parks across the UK, covering 10% of Britain’s land. They range from the sub-arctic mountains of the Cairngorms to the vineyards of the South Downs; from the jagged peaks of Eryri to the wildlife-filled wetlands of the Broads; from the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Lake District to the ancient oakwoods of the New Forest.

National Parks are crucial for the wellbeing of both people and nature. Up to 80% of the country’s priority conservation habitats are within National Parks, providing havens for important wildlife including birds, mammals, insects and plants. A 2018 study by the University of York demonstrated that every £1 invested by Defra in the North York Moors National Park generates approximately £7 of health and well-being benefits for visitors and volunteers. And they play a vital role in the rural economy; in a typical year, National Parks in England alone welcome just over 90 million visitors who spend £4 billion in the National Parks and immediate areas surrounding them.

Even so, National Parks are striving to achieve more; to deliver even greater benefits for people, place and planet.

Earlier this year, for example, the UK’s National Parks became the first in the world to join the ‘Race to Zero’ initiative, committing to drive action to halve carbon emissions within their landscapes by 2030 and become significant net carbon sinks by 2050 through large-scale nature recovery. They also set out a new vision for regenerative tourism.

In recent years, National Parks have helped 7,000 farmers in England to deliver the locally-led £50 million Farming in Protected Landscapes (FiPL) project, which has delivered 840 flood-reduction projects, create 422 ponds, protected 150 ancient monuments, created 95 new paths, and assisted farmers to secure their business profitability.

National Parks have been instrumental in large landscape-scale nature restoration projects such as Cairngorms Connect, a ‘Caledonian forest’ creation and restoration effort which is playing a vital role in the Cairngorms National Park’s aim to become the first Net Zero National Park in the world. Other projects like Moors for the Future (Peak District), the Southwest Peatland Partnership (Dartmoor and Exmoor) and Changing Chalk (South Downs) have driven the recovery of nature across huge areas.

The creation of visitor engagement centres such as The Sill: National Landscape Discovery Centre in Northumberland National Park showcase innovative ways of engaging the public, while the designation of the Lake District National Park as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2017 demonstrates how significant the cultural dimension of these landscapes can be.

And today, England’s National Parks have laid out a vision to become beacons for a sustainable future through a ‘Great National Parks Plan’, which would include delivering 20% of the nation’s nature recovery target on just 10% of the land.

Whether you seek a haven of calm in a busy world, a pulse-racing challenge, a chance to connect with nature, or a time-travelling journey into history, our National Parks are there for us all in our everyday lives. But they also have a vital role to play in meeting the big challenges of tomorrow.