Quarter of Dales National Park staff go in cuts shake-up

The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority is having to undertake a massive streamlining to halve the number of its existing six departments.

The restructuring is taking place with 34 jobs going at the end of this week – including six compulsory redundancies. Two senior roles with wages of up to £50,000 a year are among the positions being axed in the shake-up which is aiming to save £3.3m up until 2014/15.

Chief executive David Butterworth admitted that the situation was “far from ideal” as he oversees the biggest overhaul in the authority since the Yorkshire Dales National Park was formed in 1954.

He added: “This is the structure to take the authority forward over the next four years. It is not what we would have done if it hadn’t have been for the financial constraints we are facing.

“Visitors will undoubtedly see a difference to the level of service we are able to provide over the coming years, but we have no other choice.”

A six-week consultation with staff will begin today before a decision on the overhaul is made on May 31.

Once approved, the restructuring will take place in June before going live on July 1.

The authority’s current annual government grant of £5.4m will be reduced to £4.2m by 2014/15. Every one of its 36 programmes is being affected, with a dozen abandoned.

One of the most controversial cuts is the end to the countryside skills and training programme, which will be abandoned in 2013 to save only £15,000.

A £255,000 annual budget for footpath maintenance will reduce to £172,000 in the next financial year, before falling to only £137,000 in 2014/15.

Major cuts are also being enforced in a climate change strategy, while an education service, a public transport scheme and an events programme are being abandoned.

However, the authority has decided to abandon plans to pull out of a contract that could have caused the closure of a community office in Reeth. The contract to maintain a National Park Centre and Tourist Information Centre in Hudson House will be renewed, although the authority will reduce its annual funding from £28,000 to £20,000.

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