Farmer Focus: Would a new national park stifle farming more?
© Richard Stanton Following on from the UK government Budget, I have been wondering what’s next in terms of barriers to a farming future.
The relentlessness of policy changes includes the cruel inheritance tax, double cab relief, carbon tax on fertiliser and, of course recently in Wales, the water quality and bovine TB regulations.
The Welsh government is also looking to introduce a new national park where we farm. If established, it would be the fourth of its kind in Wales, and the first since 1957.
See also: Proposed national park in Galloway prompts farmer backlash
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The process started in 2021 when the Senedd commissioned Natural Resources Wales (NRW) to evaluate the case for the proposed new national park.
NRW is the statutory adviser on landscape and natural beauty and the designating authority for any new national parks and landscapes.
On the face of it, I can see positives, such as funding to help farmers maintain the landscape.
I’m thinking about fences and hedges that drop off the priority list and could do with an injection of cash to upgrade.
Maybe some improvements to local infrastructure such as roads and broadband, and repairs to footpath gates that don’t shut properly.
Alas, no new funding would be available in such challenging times. So, the question begs, why would you bother with a new national park?
My scepticism suggests this is another way of controlling the countryside.
For example, the park would have complete control over the planning applications so could potentially throttle any developments that farming businesses might have planned.
We can easily see a clash of policies where, for example, a farmer might want a new slurry lagoon to meet the requirements of the Welsh government’s water quality regulations.
Would a new national park planning authority approve such an investment without a plethora of conditions? Not to mention the increased level of traffic, litter, and other tourism pressures.
But I believe the biggest problem governments on both sides of the border now have is that the little trust that the farming community had in government policy has vanished.
I was optimistic about a new national park, but now, every time there is any sort of announcement, I have a niggling thought that it is not going to benefit me at all.