The body responsible for the North York Moors National Park has unveiled a plan to transform the area’s profile and increase visitor numbers.
The new plan aims to build on the park's health and wellbeing benefits that have been highlighted due to the pandemic.
A meeting of the North York Moors National Park Authority saw members broadly welcome proposals in its first coordinated five-year strategy and business plan, and in particular a drive to increase awareness of the park and the authority’s spectrum of conservation projects.
The authority’s chief executive, Tom Hind, told the meeting in real terms, government funding was expected to decline for the next few years, so the authority faced curtailing its projects or finding extra funding.
He said the plan, set to be launched in April, would set out the authority’s priorities, plans and allocation of resources, and building on both the park and the authority’s reputations would help attract finance.
The most important outcome in the plan, the meeting heard, would enable the authority, which is already taking a lead in woodland creation and peat restoration, to show leadership in demonstrating how to adapt to climate change while maintaining the park’s special qualities.
Mr Hinds told members creating a more biodiverse landscape would also be prioritised as it was central to to the authority’s statutory purposes, and developing a bespoke nature recovery strategy would be “the key to unlocking future government funding”.
He said, partly as a legacy of Covid, creating a place that lifted the nation’s health and wellbeing would also be central to the strategy. This would see the authority build on its access management, volunteering and youth engagement work and further links with under-served communities in Teesside and elsewhere to achieve health and well-being outcomes.
Referring to the pandemic, Mr Hinds said:
“The positive thing we have seen is people drawing more personal benefit and meaning from access to nature, to being in the great outdoors.”
The authority’s longest serving member, David Jeffels, said due to the continuing impact of Covid, he believed the national park had a “great role” to play in the new lifestyles and culture brought on by the pandemic.
However, he added:
“We have got to balance that with the impact that this could have on the park in terms of the number of visitors coming for open spaces and healthier lifestyles. If we do find ourselves with more people coming to the park how are we going to cope with them. Public transport is not particularly good.
“I hope we’re not going to find ourselves in a situation like the Lake District or Cornwall where we are inundated with visitors. How are we going to cope with that bearing in mind climate change and the ethos of the park?”
Mr Hinds responded:
“It is not just about promoting it as a great visitor destination, although that is part and parcel of our second purpose, it’s about positioning the North York Moors as an exemplar and leader in landscape-scale nature recovery and conservation delivering climate action on the ground.
“We have some great stories to tell, but historically we probably haven’t been that great at telling them. We have got to punch above our weight for the things that are going to reall matter to potential funders.”
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