The lastest news on the Southdowns National Park and map showing the National Park boundary.

Click to download South Downs Campaign newsletter spring 2010

Proposed Southdowns National Park

On 31st March 2009 Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs announced his decision to confirm the designation of the South Downs National Park.

The designation process originally started in April 2000. Following a period of public consultation the Countryside Agency - now Natural England – made a National Park designation order in December 2002 showing the area that it believed should be included. A variation order was also made in 2004 to include land around Arundel.

The proposed boundary was considered in detail at the resulting Public Inquiry that ran between 10 November 2003 and 18 March 2005. Following changes to designation legislation in 2006 the inquiry reopened for a further 5 months in 2008, and the Inspector submitted his final report (effectively his second one) to the Minister in November 2008.

Having given due regard to the Inspector’s recommendations the Minister has announced his intention to confirm the South Downs National Park designation order with modifications. This means that the National Park boundary will be different from that originally proposed by the Countryside Agency in 2002.
(Article by Natural England)

• You can view the intended boundary here

• For more detailed maps (1:25,000 scale map) of each section see below;

  Western Section

  Central Section

  Eastern Section

• Sussex Wildlife Trust make the front page of the West Sussex County Times on Friday 3rd April celebrating the announcement. You can read this article here
  
  
  Image by Elli Saunders