Taking The Cotswolds Forward

Andy Parsons, new chief executive of the Cotswolds Conservation Board, talks to Siân Ellis about the importance of inclusivity, community and volunteering (and putting up tents in silence)

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“I’ve joined England’s protected landscapes at the most exciting time for them in decades,” Andy Parsons says. The new Chief Executive of the Cotswolds Conservation Board, appointed in the autumn, is chatting over a cappuccino in the café in The Old Prison, Northleach: a convenient flight of stairs just down from his office.

The “exciting time” of course has been created by the recent Julian Glover-led review of England’s National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs), which lays down a gauntlet of recommendations to make sure our countryside is protected for the future as a positive force for the nation’s wellbeing. Not since 1949, when our system of designated landscapes came into being, has there been such a stir.

“Some of Glover’s proposals are game changing, really forward looking, and the report is full of can-do attitude,” Andy says. He is in total agreement, for example, that more needs to be done to ensure the countryside is for all to enjoy not just the few:

“We need to look at how we reach families and people who have never been to the countryside. That rings really true with me, having been brought up in Cornwall, which is very beautiful but also has huge areas of social and economic deprivation. There are examples of that here around the Cotswolds too, of people living in towns and cities less than ten miles from countryside that they have never been to. One of my biggest aims is to reach them.”

Cornwall to the Cotswolds