National parks of the United Kingdom

National parks of the United Kingdom (Welsh: parciau cenedlaethol; Scottish Gaelic: pàircean nàiseanta) are 15 areas of relatively undeveloped and scenic landscape across the country.

In the United Kingdom, an area designated as a national park may include substantial settlements and human land uses that are often integral parts of the landscape.

Recreation and tourism bring visitors and funds into the parks, to sustain their conservation efforts, and support the local population through jobs and businesses.

Slightly over half the members of each national park authority are appointees from the principal local authorities covered by the park; the remainder are appointed by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (in England) or the Welsh Ministers (in Wales), some to represent local parish or community councils, others to represent the national interest.

In cases where there may be conflict between the two purposes of designation, the first (to conserve and enhance the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage of the National Park) must take precedence under the Sandford Principle.

Despite the recommendation and continued lobbying and demonstrations of public discontent, such as the 1932 Kinder Scout mass trespass in the Peak District, nothing further was done until a 1945 white paper on national parks was produced as part of the Labour Party's planned post-war reconstruction, leading in 1949 to the passing of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act.

[8] Archaeological evidence from prehistoric Britain shows that the areas now designated as national parks have been occupied by humans since the Stone Age, at least 5,000 years ago and in some cases much earlier.

[9] However, by the early 19th century, romantic poets such as Byron, Coleridge and Wordsworth wrote about the inspirational beauty of the "untamed" countryside.

[4] Wordsworth described the English Lake District as a "sort of national property in which every man has a right and interest who has an eye to perceive and a heart to enjoy" in 1810.

This early vision, based in the Picturesque movement, took over a century, and much controversy, to take legal form in the UK with the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949.

Furthermore, those areas of natural beauty so cherished by the romantic poets were often only maintained and managed in their existing state by human activity, usually agriculture.

After World War II, the Labour Party proposed the establishment of national parks as part of the post-war reconstruction of the UK.

Sir Arthur had this to say on the criteria for designating suitable areas: The essential requirements of a National Park are that it should have great natural beauty, a high value for open-air recreation and substantial continuous extent.

Lastly there is merit in variety and with the wide diversity of landscape which is available in England and Wales, it would be wrong to confine the selection of National Parks to the more rugged areas of mountain and moorland, and to exclude other districts which, though of less outstanding grandeur and wildness, have their own distinctive beauty and a high recreational value.The National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 was passed with all party support.

The Peak District, site of the Kinder Scout trespass, was designated the first national park in April 1951 under the Clement Attlee led Labour administration.

The north Pennines were also considered for designation as a national park in the 1970s but the proposal was thought to be administratively too difficult because the area was administered by five different county councils.

The Norfolk and Suffolk Broads was designated through its own Act of Parliament in 1988, gaining status equivalent to that of a national park.

The Broads in East Anglia are not in the strictest sense a national park, being run by a separately constituted Broads Authority set up by a special Act of Parliament in 1988[3] and with a structure in which conservation is subordinate to navigational concerns (see Sandford Principle below), but it is generally regarded as being "equivalent to" a national park.

[14] Of the English and Welsh national parks that were originally proposed, two remain undesignated: the Cambrian Mountains and Cornish Coast.

The smallest national park in England and Wales, and in the United Kingdom, is The Broads, at 303 square kilometres (117 sq mi).

This gives them very strong direct control over residential and industrial development, and the design of buildings and other structures; as well as strategic matters such as mineral extraction.

Most similar to the parks are Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty which differ in part because of their more limited opportunities for extensive outdoor recreation.