…not a protected Landscape!
by Annie Zak
January 2025
Why aren’t the Cambrian Mountains a National Park, or an AONB? This question is often asked in meetings. The short answer is, “Not for lack of trying!” For an in-depth answer, read on …….
While researching this question further, I came across this blog post written by Kate Ashbrook, who very kindly gave me permission to copy it in its entirety.
Kate is the General Secretary of the Open Spaces Society, Britain’s oldest national conservation body, founded in 1865. She has held this position since April 1984. She is currently a Vice-President of Ramblers GB, Ramblers Cymru, and Ramblers Scotland, and co-chairs the Ramblers Cymru Steering Group.
Fifty years ago today, on 17 July 1973, the fate of the Cambrian Mountains was sealed, and not in a nice way. It was through a peremptory announcement by the Secretary of State for Wales, Peter Thomas, that he would not confirm the designation order for the Cambrian Mountains National Park. This covered much of mid-Wales and included magnificent wild landscapes.
Designation had first been mooted in 1947 in the Hobhouse Report, which preceded national parks. The report proposed 12 national parks and 52 conservation areas. Plynlimon and Elenith Mountains were recommended as conservation areas.
Map above. Plylimon and Elenith Mountains: proposed conservation area, Hobhouse Report 1947.
After the first ten national parks were created under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949, the National Parks Commission, which had a duty to designate suitable areas, agreed to consider the designation of a Mid Wales National Park.
In 1968 the Countryside Commission succeeded the National Parks Commission. Advised by its Committee for Wales, the commission carried out formal consultation on a Cambrian Mountains National Park. The proposal met with opposition from most of the local authorities and the Country Landowners’ Association. The commission revised the boundary, excluding roughly 110 square miles or 19 per cent of the original area in an attempt to meet the concerns of its opponents.
n July 1973, the Secretary of State for Wales announced in cabinet his decision to reject the national park designation. The Department of the Environment and the Countryside Commission were deeply concerned. Letters and memoranda flew between senior civil servants in the Welsh Office and DoE.
On 16 July, the Countryside Commission chairman, John Cripps, deputy chairman, Robin Herbert, and director, Reg Hookway, were invited to meet Peter Thomas and others at the Welsh Office. Thomas said that he intended to reject the designation because of the ‘massive evidence of objections’ and would not hold an inquiry because ‘I cannot envisage any evidence which would lead me to change my mind’. He refused to enter into further discussion, saying it was a straightforward political decision.
The following day, without any warning (even to the Countryside Commission), Thomas, in a written answer to a parliamentary question from Caerwyn Roderick, Labour MP for Brecon and Radnor, announced his decision not to confirm the order.
The Times, 18 July 1973.
The commission was furious. It issued a press release headed ‘Countryside Commission deeply dismayed’. Its quiet but effective chairman, John Cripps, wrote a letter of complaint to the Times.
John Cripps’ letter in the Times, 20 July 1973
Following a meeting of commissioners, he wrote on 10 August to the secretary of state:
‘They asked me to convey to you our deep disappointment that a proposal which, initially, had been encouragingly received by the Welsh Office, had been actively promoted by the Commission’s Committee for Wales since its inception and had received the support of the Welsh Council, should have been rejected without a public inquiry; and that we were not even afforded an opportunity to discuss the matter with you.’ He went on to say that it was ‘accepted practice, when any major proposal concerning land is advanced by a statutory body in the performance of a duty laid on them by Parliament, and there are objections, to hold a public inquiry’.
He noted that, earlier, ‘the Minister of State had written to the Secretary of the Ramblers’ Association [Chris Hall] that, if there were a significant weight of objection, the Secretary of State would arrange a public inquiry by an experienced inspector, whose report would be published. In the circumstances it seems to us strange that the main reason given for not holding a public inquiry was the number, substance and strength of the objections.’
He also asked that the legislation be amended ‘to require a public inquiry to be held, following designation of a national park, when there are outstanding objections; and to require a Minister to consult the Commission before he refuses to confirm a designation’.
(Some of this did happen later. The legislation now states there must be a public inquiry if local authorities object to a designation order.)
Thomas’s response, more than two months later, on 16 October 1973, was a brush-off. He claimed that a major factor was the ‘unprecedently strong and wide-ranging public opposition to the order’ and that ‘to hold an inquiry would have been otiose, time-wasting and positively misleading to all concerned’. In other words, he had a closed mind.
Perhaps he was also envisaging a forthcoming general election and wanted to ensure he could make the final decision. There was an election in February 1974, so had there been an inquiry, the decision would have been made by a Labour secretary of state—and would probably have been different.
The Countryside Commission’s annual report for the year ending 30 September 1973 was even more explicit: ‘ … the objectors failed to appreciate the aim of designation in promoting an appropriate planning framework within which policies could be developed for the conservation of a beautiful area much threatened by commercial forestry, by water schemes, and by a revival of extractive industry ‘. It concluded: ‘The rejection of designation proposals, therefore, amounts to a setback for conservation and for economic development in a hard-pressed part of Wales.’
The Cambrian Mountains remain under threat of exploitation, not least by wind turbines. Today the energetic Cambrian Mountains Society is lobbying hard for the area to be designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The Senedd is more sympathetic than was the Secretary of State for Wales 50 years ago; for instance, it has commissioned Natural Resources Wales to evaluate the case for a North East Wales National Park.
Let the glorious Cambrian Mountains be next.
I was much assisted by a timeline which was on the Cambrian Mountains Society website (but is no longer there). It was I believe written by the late David Bateman, who contributed so much to the campaign to save the Cambrian Mountains.
- More information about the CMS AONB Campaign
- On 30 November 2022, the Senedd debated a petition containing 20,889 signatures calling for “Protect Mid-Wales’ unique Cambrian Mountains: Designate them an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.” The petition was noted but failed to achieve its aim.
Read/view the debate here.
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