Why it's time to list the landscape

Michael Gove should be applauded for his desire to enhance and possibly extend our national parks and AONBs

- Simon Jenkins

BRITAIN’S National Parks are an easy win for Defra Secretary of State Michael Gove. Who could object to his desire to see them enhanced and possibly extended? A flurry of polls on the state of Britain at the time of the 2012 Olympics put the countryside on a par with the Royal Family, the NHS and Shakespeare as a chief source of national pride. Yet no Government minister this century has shown the slightest interest in the rural landscape, so we must now give a cheer.

Mr Gove has set up an inquiry to strengthen the 15 National Parks and 46 Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) that cover roughly a quarter of Britain’s land area. We can all rush forward with our candidates for promotion: the Cotswolds, the Chilterns, the Wye Valley, the Cambrian Mountains, the North Pennines. However, to be honest, these are already the crown jewels of the countryside. Apart from the random wind turbine or super-barn, they’re already in the statutory Tower of London.

It is on the other side of the hill that lies Armageddon. Ever since Eric Pickles invited lobbyists from the construction industry to rewrite the coalition’s national planning policy framework in 2012, 60% of rural Britain has been ‘in play’ and has seen the most relentless land-use battles since the 1930s. This is the countryside sandwiched between Mr Gove’s protected areas and the 15% of Britain that is already built over. This mostly lowland landscape of hills and valleys, fields and trees is, to most Britons, their local ‘area of natural beauty’, more precious to them than any national park. Under current and prospective Whitehall planning guidance, it’s all now at risk. I know of hardly a rural community that does not feel under siege from Government demands for development.