New Foreat National Park Achievements in the first 18 months

Achievements in the first 18 months

• Giving nearly £350,000 in grants directly to local people and places to support 29 innovative projects through the Sustainable Development Fund since April 2006
•  Helping to bring hundreds of thousands of pounds of extra money into the Forest, including LEADER and Heritage Lottery funding to support commoning and other vital aspects of Forest life
• Taking a lead role in fighting to protect the Park’s special qualities – for example, on Southampton’s proposed ‘laser gateway’, which threatened the Park’s dark night-time skies, and on proposals to expand Bournemouth Airport and the north-south flight path over the Forest, which threaten the Park’s tranquillity
• Leading or playing a key role in imaginative campaigns that bring a fresh approach to long-standing Forest issues such as litter and animal accidents
• Supporting the life of the Forest – for instance, helping to fund Land Rovers for the Agisters, backing the New Forest tour bus, and promoting New Forest produce including the New Forest breakfast
• Special dedicated support for commoning including a major Commoning Review, securing increased financial support for commoners and a Landscape Partnership which will lead to a £2m Heritage Lottery Fund bid, much of which will support commoners
• Establishing strong partnerships that benefit the Forest – for instance, a long-term association with the Ninth Centenary Trust to turn the former New Forest Museum and Library in Lyndhurst into the New Forest Centre and a project with the Forestry Commission, the Verderers and Scottish and Southern Energy to bury unsightly overhead power lines underground
• Promoting understanding and enjoyment of the Park’s special qualities in diverse and creative ways … from an eight-minute movie to a fun zone on the website, from awareness panels to a prize-winning presence at the New Forest Show, from marking the boundary with locally-grown and locally-made signs to a Pocket Guide for visitors
• Taking on the role of planning authority for the National Park and dealing with 1,330 applications in the first year
• Submitting, and progressing through Examination in Public to adoption, a joint Core Spatial Strategy for Minerals and Waste, working in partnership with Hampshire County Council and Southampton and Portsmouth City Councils. This was the first Minerals and Waste Core Strategy to be adopted nationally and the first Development Plan Document prepared under the new spatial planning system to be adopted by a National Park Authority
• Instigating a fundamental review of Conservation Areas within the National Park; and (currently) carrying out public consultation on radically altered designations tailored to embrace the built heritage of the National Park within its cultural landscape on a much broader basis than that which existed prior to the creation of the National Park
• Showing the Authority means business on planning enforcement - by issuing a ‘stop notice’ on inappropriate works, for example
• Developing a growing range of education, events and outreach work including setting up an Educators’ Forum, publishing an Outdoor Education Guide and education factsheets, establishing a National Park events programme with partners and using education travel grants to enable otherwise excluded groups to visit the National Park
• Getting in place members, key staff, temporary offices and initial plans in time for April 2006 and continuing to develop capability, systems and procedures – for example, a complete suite of HR policies, moving towards Investors in People accreditation and Corporate Sustainability Standard
• Involving stakeholders in work to produce the crucial plans that will shape the future of the New Forest National Park for years to come: the National Park Management Plan, the Local Development Framework Core Strategy, the Recreation Management Strategy and two Corporate (Best Value) Plans
• Providing a listening ear for the diverse voices in the Forest and a national voice for the Park with ministers and policy-makers
• Keeping people informed about the work of the National Park Authority and its partners through regular talks, events, the website and publications including the Park Life newsletter, Forest Focus visitor newspaper with the Forestry Commission and New Forest Today magazine with New Forest District Council

And there is much still to do…such as:

• Jointly funding more ‘community rangers’ dealing with urban fringe  issues, outreach, volunteering and education, and a dedicated co- ordinator
• Implementing the ‘future of commoning’ review
• Landscape restoration and maritime archaeology projects
• Transport infrastructure improvements, experimental road closures, novel payback schemes
• Extending the Authority’s presence in others’ visitor centres
• Innovative interpretation such as podcasts, mobile phone technology, mobile display trailer
• Campaigns on animal accidents, animal feeding, climate change
• Market research on the impact of the National Park
• Completing the preparation and starting implementation of the new National Park policy framework  (National Park Management Plan, LDF Core Strategy and Recreation Management Strategy)  including new advisory packages and guidance
• Developing a strategy for climate change in the National Park.