National Parks: Delivering on Their Duty and their Democratic Deficits

Speech by Kirsty Williams AM delivered to National Assembly for Wales - Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru on Wed 30th Apr 2008

I seem to have a habit of being drawn for the short debate at an inopportune time in the Assembly's calendar. Therefore, I am very grateful to the Minister. I see that I am joined by three Plaid Cymru Members, which is three more than I had expected. I thought that this debate would be between me, Jane Davidson, the Deputy Presiding Officer, and our former colleague, Alun Pugh, who I know is watching at home.

The Snowdonia, Pembrokeshire and Brecon Beacons national parks cover 20 per cent of the landmass of Wales-one fifth of our country. In England and Scotland, the national parks comprise only 7 per cent of the land area. Clearly, in our small nation, national parks are a big deal.

For those who visit our national parks, they are areas of outstanding beauty, fantastic open spaces to explore, to relax in and, as the strapline says, simply to 'breathe easier'. They are guardians of our natural heritage and environment, preserving our ecosystems while allowing us to enjoy and learn about the habitats and the creatures preserved within them. They are places to exercise and to be invigorated by the great outdoors.

However, unlike many of their international cousins, they are not wildernesses. Not only do they attract visitors by their internationally recognised names, which are wonderful marketing tools in their own right, but they also have a big impact upon those of us that live within their borders. They can generate economic activity, and develop forms of sustainable living. The park authorities exercise huge influence over development and planning. However, those of us who live and work in such communities sometimes feel that our needs are not being met by those park authorities. National parks are not museums, or places for people to come and stare at us. We need jobs, homes for families, and facilities for our young people-all the infrastructure that any community needs. The roots of park authorities' planning roles spread deep into the foundations of so many of the simple decisions that residents in my constituency make: to install new windows or not, to have a garage or an extension or not, or to have a satellite dish or not. Even the simplest matters fall within the park authorities' very wide remit.

Britain's first national park was the Peak district, established in 1951. Snowdonia became the first national park in Wales, established in the same year, followed closely by Pembrokeshire in 1952 and the Brecon Beacons in 1957. The two statutory purposes of the national park authorities, as defined in the Environment Act 1995, are to conserve and enhance the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage of the parks, and to promote opportunities for the enjoyment and understanding of its special qualities. The Act also places a duty on the national park authorities to foster the economic and social wellbeing of their local communities, without incurring significant expenditure in doing so. The Government of Wales Act 2006 states that Assembly Ministers must have due regard for the contents of the Environment Act when exercising functions that may impact upon national parks.

However, along with swathes of my constituents, I am concerned that national parks authorities are not delivering on all of their duties. I think that, in an ever-changing world, it is time to look at their role for the twenty-first century, and how the challenges that national parks face can be best addressed.

It is well-known in this Chamber that a large part of my constituency is covered by the Brecon Beacons National Park. As I said earlier, it was established in 1957, and it was the tenth area in England and Wales to be given such status. With up to 180 people being employed by the national park's authority, and Powys accounting for 66 per cent of the park area, it is an important local feature and employer. Of the 24 members of the national park authority, 16 are appointed by the unitary authorities in the park area, and eight by the Minister. That arrangement maintains the previous convention for managing the national parks of England and Wales, whereby two thirds of authority members would be local councillors, and one third would be Secretary of State appointees. That is an inherited convention, and I believe there is room for modernisation and democratisation. The authority owns 13.5 per cent of the land within the park, and other institutional landowners include the Forestry Commission, Welsh Water, the National Trust and the Countryside Council for Wales. However, some 70 per cent of the land within the park is privately owned. Given that over two thirds of the land owned by the public, surely it should have the power to decide who sits on the board of the national park authority, which has such a great say in how the land is used.

Each year, the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority deals with some 700 planning applications. That means 700 decisions made by unelected and, quite frankly, unaccountable individuals. The scope and influence of the planning authority on ordinary people's lives is widespread, and it is for that reason that I believe, along with my Liberal Democrat colleagues, that we should have an element of direct election to the authority. Indeed, the Welsh Assembly Government's independent review of the Welsh national park authorities in March 2003 recommended consultation on the possibility of one fifth of authority members being appointed by direct elections, or via a collegiate system involving the community councils. Carwyn Jones was the relevant Minister at the time, and he took an all-or-nothing approach, saying that he thought that if we had an element of direct election to the national park authorities, there would be more problems than we have at present.

Seventy-five per cent of the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority's total revenue comes from the Welsh Assembly Government. I understand that, as the park a national resource and treasure, it is only right that there is role for national appointees.

The remaining money provided to the national park comes from local authorities and I appreciate, therefore, that it is only right that local authorities should have some representation on the board. However, taxpayers of all kinds should surely have a greater say as to who is in charge of spending their money. In 2005-06, the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority spent millions of pounds on the provision of services-those are significant sums of money for unelected representatives to spend without any real accountability.

There is currently no compulsion in Wales to ensure that the local authority appoints to the board members whose wards are within the national park. That has led to concerns that those who live in the park are not being truly represented under the current system. For example, there are three Powys county councillors on the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority board who do not represent wards in the national park. They are not accountable to those who live within the park. Of the remaining five Powys county councillors on the board, only one has a ward wholly within the park with the remaining four having only parts of their wards in the park. Those five Powys county councillors, between them, have 5,301 constituents who are resident in the park. One councillor has only seven constituents resident in the park, yet there are 22,825 people living in the Powys section of the park. Effectively, only four of the Powys county councillors represent any park residents at all. The eight Powys County Council appointees between them represent only 23 per cent of the total number of people resident within the Powys section of the park.

The major settlements of Brecon and Crickhowell have no direct representation, and, ironically, the local perspective is represented by the Assembly's appointees who happen to live in those areas of the national park.

Minister, how is this approach democratic and what can be done to change it? Parish members of English national park authorities must be members of parish councils that are at least partly within the park. In Scotland, local members must be ward or community councillors for areas that are at least partly located in the park. Why do we not have similar rules in Wales?

Earlier today, we discussed Huw Lewis's proposed legislative competence Order. Thus far, I have been unlucky in that my bid for a legislative competence Order has not been pulled out of the hat. However, if that were to be the case, I would call for Wales to have the powers to change the rules relating to the appointment of local authority members to national park authorities, in addition to the Assembly's powers to appoint members to national park authorities. I believe that it would be desirable to tackle the lack of democratic representation head on by introducing at least an element of direct election to the authority, along with wider representation from community councils on the park bodies. In Scotland, for example, one fifth of members of national park authorities are directly elected. The legislative competence Order that I am bidding for would be needed to enable the Minister to consider action of this nature and I hope that the Government and Minister could support my proposal for a legislative competence Order should it be drawn in the ballot. In the meantime I call upon the Minister to take on board the submissions that she has received in response to her recent consultation on representations on the national park authority. In the past, Powys County Council has not paid to due regard to the guidance issued by the Assembly on who should represent the council on Brecon Beacons National Park Authority.

I believe that there are other reasons for pursuing a legislative competence Order in this area. As we discuss the role of national parks in this new century, it is only appropriate that all powers relating to national parks should be devolved to the Assembly. We should have the opportunity, for instance, to safeguard those environments. It is ironic that the National Assembly for Wales, in technical advice note 8, can state that there should not be any windfarm developments within the national park, because of the adverse effect that would have on the environment, yet had no powers to stop the liquefied natural gas pipeline being driven through the area.

There is an opportunity to have legislation in Wales that can better protect our national parks from such developments. The National Assembly needs to consider its own position in this area. At the moment, there is huge disquiet in Snowdonia. At Llanbedr, the National Assembly has decided to sell off a disused military airfield with a view to a commercial operation buying the land and running an airport in what is one of the jewels of the Welsh countryside.

The Minister must have due regard for the national park's special status, and I would like to see any evidence that the Minister has to show that she has considered that before she allows an airport to be established effectively within the national park.

Not only are the national parks not delivering on democracy, they are failing to fulfil some of their statutory duties to promote economic growth and to safeguard our cultural heritage and social wellbeing. For instance, the Minister has previously expressed her concern at the national parks' lack of progress on the affordable housing agenda. In Bwlch, in my constituency, at Springbank Close, a housing needs survey identifying a need for affordable housing was ignored, and the houses that were built went on the open market and were in no way affordable to the local community. After complaints by the community council, the park and the Minister said that the omission was due to human error rather than a systematic failure to enforce their policy. That is simply unacceptable.

My surgeries and my postbag are filled with complaints about the park's failures in its planning procedures, from delays in processing applications to a lack of response to letters and officers' inability to return calls. I am concerned that the park's good work in other areas and its reputation are being damaged to the point at which only radical restructuring can restore residents' faith.

A local businessman who runs investment companies around the world wrote to me. He said,

'I have never experienced such poor service from a publicly funded body, in this country, or even in developing countries in which I have had business dealings. I do not take this approach to you lightly but do so in desperation as I seem to have no recourse to progressing matters through the BBNPA.'

The BBNPA is the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority. The operator of a leading tourist attraction wrote to me recently, begging for his tourist attraction to be taken out of the national park because of the difficulties that he had experienced.

Rural tourism and farm businesses need a reactive and positive planning system, which we simply do not have at the moment. The small size of the Brecon Beacons planning department, and a lack of investment in that part of the park's work, have meant a high turnover of planning staff, and an unacceptable burden has been placed on the remaining officers who, often unqualified, are constantly struggling to keep up with applications, some of which have become excessively delayed.

I know that the Minister has put in place plans to try to address some of these problems following the publication of the Gilestone report, but I ask her to look at Powys County Council's most recent audit report, published this week, on the handling of planning applications in the park. There is huge disquiet in my constituency about how the park is dealing with this matter. That has not been helped this week by the fact that only two pages of this latest report have been handed over to the public. The rest, we are told, is too sensitive. That begs the question of whether the park has ever heard of a black marker to cover up sensitive information that it feels it cannot make available.

Our national parks have the opportunity to be known as places of greatness and innovation. For those of us living in them, at the moment, there is a real sense that the parks are not looking after the people who live and work there.