Hard pressed parks now relying on volunteers

National park chiefs have admitted they can only conserve some of Europe’s finest moorlands by relying on the kindness of volunteers, as the Government’s austerity measures erode key departments.
North York Moors National Park: The foot of Sutton BankNorth York Moors National Park: The foot of Sutton Bank
North York Moors National Park: The foot of Sutton Bank

The North York Moors National Park Authority has proposed how it intends to make its latest round of cuts totalling £300,000 and managers concede that they will now have to rely more on external funding, volunteers, apprentices and graduates.

The national park has one of the largest expanses of heather moorland in England, and is one of the most valuable areas for prehistoric sites. It contains 839 scheduled monuments dating back to the Bronze Age - nearly a third of those found in the entire Yorkshire and Humber region.

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The park’s chief executive Andy Wilson said it was “inevitable” that public spending cuts, which by next year will have amounted to a 40 per cent reduction in the Authority’s budget since 2010, will affect frontline services.

“However much we push efficiency, productivity and cut out admin, a budget cut on this scale does have an effect,” Mr Wilson said. “There will be a substantial reduction of grants we can give the public and our efforts to conserve the national park.”

He hopes a substantial pool of people will be prepared to carry out conservation work in the park without pay: “There’s a generation of people retiring earlier who are fitter and better skilled than ever before and we need to use that,” Mr Wilson said. “We’re maximising our income but that can only recoup a little of the 40 per cent cut and the indications are that the situation will get worse rather than better for this part of the public sector.

“We’ve protected the budget we give to the public as long as possible but we just can’t protect them entirely any longer. We will strain every sinew to maintain our services and conserve the park as best we can. As the Tour de France showed, our scenery is our lifeblood.”

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In the autumn, members of the neighbouring Yorkshire Dales National Park will begin to explore how to trim £150,000 off its budget in 2015/16. An earlier round of cost cutting in the Dales in 2011 led to 40 staff out of 140 employees losing their jobs through redundancies, early retirements and the termination of contracts, while its education and local transport programmes were abandoned.

David Butterworth, the park’s chief executive, said: “We will be much more reliant on income generation and will have to look at charging for services. National parks cost £1 a year per person which I think is value for money so for us to be facing such a difficult situation is tough.”

The proposed cuts in the North York Moors will be discussed on Monday before a final decision is taken in September.