Creation of the fourth-largest national park in England and Wales is met with joy ? and a little scepticism? In pictures: The UK's newest national parkShould you be lucky enough to be standing at a high point along the South Downs Way on Friday ? the top of Butser Hill, Chanctonbury Ring or Ditchling Beacon, say ? you may just catch the distant sounds of church bells wafting on the wind. They are being rung at churches along the 100-mile arc of Britain's newest national park across Sussex and Hampshire, from Eastbourne to Winchester, to celebrate its opening.The terribly English celebrations ? there will be handbell ringing too, a children's choir in Petersfield and, inevitably, morris dancing, safely away from the edge, at Beachy Head ? mark the culmination of a campaign that has been running since the 1940s when the UK's first national parks were designated.There is a reason for the delay: the South Downs park is not like most of the rest, set in wild and remote landscapes, but deep in the south-east of England, close to large conurbations: London, Brighton, Portsmouth and Southampton. It sits on land that has been intensively cultivated and inhabited for millennia. Bronze age farmers knew the area, medieval ironmasters hacked at its copses, and 18th-century owners enclosed its fields. It remains a landscape that Jane Austen, who lived at Chawton near its northern boundary, would recognise; William Cobbett, the radical 19th-century journalist, who rode through it in the 1820s, noted the preachers' plumpness and the thinness of their congregations.More than 108,000 people now live in the new national park, some of them cultivating land their ancestors have farmed for centuries, and many living in the renovated barns and former yokels' cottages that even in a recession can fetch �750,000. The park encompasses 1,600 sq km, making it the fourth largest of the 13 in England and Wales, with 85% of its land under cultivation. There are still wild spots: chalk downlands and woods, heathland and beech hangers, but this archetypal English landscape bears the marks of many generations.Margaret Paren, the retired civil servant who chairs the South Downs national park authority, who today will unveil its new flag in Petersfield, said: "We have been working towards this day for more than 10 years and it is going to be quite a big event ? a community celebration ? because people are incredibly passionate about the South Downs."The authority's job will be to conserve and enhance the natural beauty and cultural heritage of the area, educate the visiting public, and foster its economic and social wellbeing. It will also supervise planning decisions within the park, setting strategic goals, although day-to-day decisions will be seconded to the 15 local authorities within its area.Even so, it becomes the eighth largest planning authority in the country, in receipt of �9.4m of central government funding this year: far in excess of what the area would have received had the Labour government not agreed to set up the park in 2009.Not everyone is greeting the park's creation with unalloyed joy, however. Many farmers remain to be convinced of its benefits. David Ashcroft, who farms at Selborne in the same Hampshire fields that the village's famous 18th-century parson, the naturalist Gilbert White, once knew, said: "We are used to managing crops and livestock and now we will have to get used to a new crop, managing people."The sort of folk making a pilgrimage to the village are already likely to be acutely aware of nature conservation, but Ashcroft added: "Tourism does not necessarily help farmers per se. There will be more pressures. Just because we are in a national park, that does not mean the land has been nationalised. This isn't Yellowstone Park ? people won't be free to go wherever they want. The land has been owned and nurtured by generations of farmers, like a garden. There is a lot of suspicion among farmers: it's like anything ? nobody likes anything new and people don't like bureaucracy." Actually, the new authority does not have a vast bureaucracy: there will be 80 employees, including 30 rangers, and most of its board are local authority representatives.David Taylor, who farms 900 acres with arable crops and a herd of 50 beef cattle near Lewes, said: "Those of us near conurbations are already under visitor pressure. It's ignorance really. You get people picnicking and camping among your livestock, people cutting down fences and fun runs coming through leaving the gates open."The authority hopes to mollify farmers by promoting South Downs produce as a brand. "How do I brand a ton of wheat?" said Taylor. "It will be all right if it's not too prescriptive: the selling point is not the breed but where it is reared."Mike Tristram, whose family have farmed land above Lancing for 250 years and who now runs a horticulture business, said: "We need to farm economically and profitably and we will work with whatever the government says. If this gives us access to an authority with more clout, then so much the better, but it is not yet clear what the value-added benefit will be."Among those more positive is Steve Gilbert, conservation programme manager for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. The area includes habitats for corn buntings and grey partridges on the chalk downlands and nightjars and woodlarks in the heathlands."We are strongly supportive of the park. We want it to succeed, it is extremely important for us," he said. "Public access is an issue which, if we are careful, can be managed. If people are going to appreciate the countryside, they have got to be allowed to go and see what it is like."Park lifeThere are now 15 national parks in England, Wales and Scotland. England has 10, Wales three and Scotland two.The first parks were set up in the early 1950s, following the Access to Countryside Act of 1949. They were the Peak District, Lake District, Snowdonia and Dartmoor. The most recent, before the South Downs, was the New Forest in 2005. Scotland's national parks were established in 2002.The 13 parks in England and Wales now receive 110 million visitors a year and cover nearly 11% of the countryside (20% in Wales).The largest British national park is the Cairngorms, covering 4,528 sq km of the Scottish Highlands. In England, the largest is the Lake District (2,292 sq km). The smallest is the Broads in Norfolk with 303 sq km.The next area likely to receive national park status is the Chilterns.National parksCommunitiesConservationWalking holidaysSussexWildlifeStephen Batesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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