Find, save and share Public Notices that affect you in the area.
Search the Public Notice Portal What is the Public Notice Portal?What is the Public Notice Portal?
The Public Notice Portal carries statutory public notices published in local newspapers and is the fastest and most effective way of finding out what is happening in YOUR neighbourhood.
Search the Public Notice PortalShould the Somerset Levels become Britain's new national park?
That was the question on everybody's lips at an event organised by the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) at Glastonbury Town Hall earlier this month.
A panel of local experts gathered on a cold Thursday evening for a "big conservation" event, where locals laid out the pros and cons of creating a new national park in the heart of rural Somerset.
But while the majority of those assembled voted in favour of a new national park in principle at the end of the night, numerous challenges and obstacles remain before that can even begin to become a reality.
Here are six big issues which will need to be addressed:
Further restrictions on farming
Large sections of the Somerset Levels and Moors are currently used for agriculture - with farmers fearing that a national park designation would add an unwanted layer of additional bureaucracy.
Charlie Walford, who farm at Upton Bridge Farm in Long Sutton (near Langport) said he supported efforts to improve biodiversity and ecology but worried that more red tape would be counter-productive.
He said: "We've got the sustainable farming incentive, we've got sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs), and most of my farm is in a higher stewardship scheme.
"I can't fart at certain times of the year with someone from the government telling me off. Now we want to add more bureaucracy to make sure everything's managed in a lovely way.
"I agree that we should keep phosphates off the Levels - but maybe we should have a word with Wessex Water and get them to stop dumping so much in the river in the first place.
"I don't think we need more bureaucracy. Agriculture in the UK is absolutely on its knees at the moment."
Impact on food security
At a time when the UK's food supply is being called into question by climate change, house-building and disruption to international supply chains, some questioned whether a national park designation would actually help to address this.
One local resident, who did not provide her name, said: "At a time when food security is so important, do we need to flood farmland in order to protect a lot of biodiversity?
"Is it really good to flood areas in order to help biodiversity and maybe forsake the people, the businesses and the farmers in those areas?"
Janette Ward, a CPRE trustee, said that the type of crops being grown in Somerset had a big impact on flooding and in turn on biodiversity.
She said: "At the moment we have flooding going on in the Levels because, frankly, water is just running off maize fields, which causes all sorts of problems.
"We know that we can have land management and natural catchment management that actually will address that."
David Banwell, who farms in Wedmore, concurred: "Maize should be banned in Somerset."
Dealing with drought and flooding
Somerset has experience extreme weather over the last 12 months, with the flooding and severe disruption of Storm Chandra in January giving way to drought following one of the hottest summers on record.
Mr Banwell said: "We get floods every year, but trying to keep the water in the wetlands in the summer is becoming a major problem.
"It's a real challenge because the system is not maintained properly, I don't think."
James Grischeff, director of nature recovery at the Somerset Wildlife Trust, said that nature recovery projects across Somerset could help to offset the impacts of climate change while working with local farmers.
He said: "We're trying to do is have a situation where the water is conserved so that we don't lose the wetlands in the summer, which we are absolutely doing.
"We need more land for wildlife is because wildlife is in decline. We have hotspots where we've actually been successful at some species coming back - some of them on the Somerset Levels.
"We need a strategic conversation about how the Levels should look and what we actually want from them in the future."
Mistrust of central government
Numerous attendees were sceptical about how well a national park would be managed, citing the perceived failings in the responses to the disastrous floods of 2012 and 2013/14 (which led to the creation of the Somerset Rivers Authority).
One local resident stated: "I remember the floods of 2014 around Burrowbridge and Muchelney; I was sandbagging to stop the River Parrett from overflowing.
"I was absolutely aghast at the Environment Agency and there was such a failure of help for the people of Burrowbridge at the time.
"The EA had degraded so much of the infrastructure - they hadn't dredged the rhynes, they had cut down trees on the Parrett and the pumping stations had been neglected, so the water on the levels was getting higher and higher."
Vanessa Becker-Hughes of the Somerset Eel Recovery Project warned that an extra layer of government could slow down nature recovery rather than boosting it.
She said: "It's a lot harder to actually do action on national park land, because you need extra licences and permits and things like that.
"Sometimes when we're looking about increasing biodiversity, we need to be able to do it quicker and faster - and that does concern me that there might be another layer put on here."
Ability to cope with increased levels of tourism
While much of Somerset's economy depends on tourism, there were concerns about whether the county's existing roads and infrastructure could cope with large numbers of additional visitors.
One elderly lady, who has lived in the Glastonbury area for more than 20 years, said: "I really enjoy the Levels, and I think it would be great for other people who live in cities to be able to come and visit them.
"I used to come out very regularly to watch the starling murmurations - but when the BBC put them on television, it became impossible.
"The whole place was full - literally, I counted 130 people at one particular hearing spot.
"You can't experience being in nature when you're surrounded by loads of people who are chattering away and children who are jumping around."
Another gentleman stated: "If you get an exciting rare bird on the Moors, what you find is very quickly you get half a dozen cars blocking all the passing points on all the single track roads.
"If you're looking to bring additional tourism into the area, there needs to be some very major changes."
How it would affect the housing crisis
Every national park has its own local planning authority to determine planning applications within its boundaries - with many having strict controls on what can be delivered.
If a whole swathe of Somerset suddenly became a national park, it could force changes to the new Somerset Local Plan (which comes into effect in the spring of 2029) - and could lead to communities around the border of the park having to take additional housing.
One gentleman, who declined to give his name, said: "Be careful what you wish for.
"The premium on house prices in national parks is about 24 per cent because of restricted development.
"We struggle as a county anyway to keep young people in our communities; adding a further premium onto house prices will exacerbate this."
Caroline Barnes, who works for Thrive Somerset, added: "We've got 13,000 people on the Homefinder register.
"We know there's a huge need for local villages to be able to put in some affordable housing - small scale schemes, on rural exception sites if possible.
"There are solutions for sensible, well-designed, small-scale affordable homes where there's a need."
At the end of the event in Glastonbury, a vote was held - with the majority of those assembled backing the principle of a new national park.
A CPRE spokesperson stated after the event: "It’s clear that a national park would not be a magic wand to fix everything.
"However, we firmly believe that it would provide the mechanism to look at this special landscape as a whole.
"It would allow for landscape-scale strategies, designed to balance different needs and opportunities in an area recognised for its national importance. That’s our aim.
"It’s fair to say that the reaction of the audience was mixed but a show of hands at the end of the evening gave overwhelming support for us to keep exploring the idea - so we will, and we will keep listening."
Share