The Northumberland national park. Photo: Keith Edkins CC-BY-SA-3.0
National park bosses are to seek a judicial review of cuts to their budget made by the coalition Government.
Members of the Northumberland National Park Authority agreed to write to Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman in a move to challenge the imposition of cuts of up to 28 per cent over the next four years.
The authority said the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs had simply salami sliced all English national park authorities without taking into account each park’s circumstances. The Northumberland authority said it is underfunded compared to some other parks.
It also said Defra failed to take part in any meaningful consultations with Northumberland before it made the cuts.
The challenge by Northumberland national park follows the successful legal challenge by six local authorities earlier this month in which High Court judge Mr Justice Holman ruled Education Secretary Michael Gove had acted unlawfully in cutting the schools building programme without consultation.
A meeting between the Northumberland authority chair and chief executive and the minister in charge of national parks failed to resolve the matter.
A spokesperson for the authority said: “Northumberland National Park Authority is issuing this letter of claim to ask Defra to go back and review with an open mind its decision to cut the Authority’s budget and to take into account the individual circumstances of each national park authority before budget decisions are made.
“It is also asking for Defra to reconsider its decision not to implement its fair funding formula for the next four years.”
Authority chair John Riddle, said: “My board has been forced to take this action in order to ask Defra to apply the same care to making budget cutting decisions to the English national park authorities as Government currently offers to other English local authorities like councils and police authorities.
“We accept the need for cuts to help rebalance Government spending and income. All we want is for Defra to use a fair and transparent decision making process.”
Chief executive Tony Gates added: “The action my members are taking is borne out of frustration.
“Northumberland is having to cut proportionately more services and staff than any other national park, yet the latest assessment of national park authorities found us to be efficient and highly effective.
“It is unlikely that Defra will change its mind in time to reverse the need to make nearly one in three of the authority’s staff redundant. However, my authority believes it is necessary to challenge this decision in order to help protect this, the least funded national park, from the consequences of an irrational decision.”
