The National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 is an Act of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...

which created the National Parks Commission which later became the

Countryside Commission The Countryside Commission (formally the Countryside Commission for England and Wales, then the Countryside Commission for England) was a statutory body in England and Wales, and later in England only. Its forerunner, the National Parks Commissio ...

and then the

Countryside Agency The Countryside Agency was a statutory body set up in England in 1999 with the task of improving the quality of the rural environment and the lives of those living in it. The agency was dissolved in 2006 and its functions dispersed among other bod ...

, which became

Natural England Natural England is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It is responsible for ensuring that England's natural environment, including its land, flora and fauna, ...

when it merged with

English Nature English Nature was the United Kingdom government agency that promoted the conservation of wildlife, geology and wild places throughout England between 1990 and 2006. It was a non-departmental public body funded by the Department for Environmen ...

in 2006. The Act provided the framework for the creation of

National Park A national park is a nature park, natural park in use for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state dec ...

s and

Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; , AHNE) is an area of countryside in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, that has been designated for conservation due to its significant landscape value. Areas are designated in recognition of thei ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

, and also addressed public rights of way and access to open land. The Act was passed in 1949 with all-party support, as part of the reconstruction of the UK by the

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

government after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The Act followed reports by: *a

Government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

committee chaired by Christopher Addison (later Viscount Addison) in 1931, * John Dower, secretary of the Standing Committee on National Parks, to the Minister of Town and Country Planning in 1945, and *a Government committee chaired by Sir Arthur Hobhouse in 1947, which proposed 12 national parks. The first 10 British national parks were designated as such in the 1950s under the Act in mostly poor-quality agricultural upland. An eleventh 'national park' in the

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

and Suffolk Broads was set up by a special

Act of Parliament Acts of Parliament, sometimes referred to as primary legislation, are texts of law passed by the Legislature, legislative body of a jurisdiction (often a parliament or council). In most countries with a parliamentary system of government, acts of ...

, the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads Act, in 1988. Strictly speaking, this is not a national park, but the differences are sufficiently small that this entity is always regarded as being "equivalent to" a national park. The

New Forest The New Forest is one of the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and forest in Southern England, covering southwest Hampshire and southeast Wiltshire. It was proclaimed a royal forest by William the Conqueror, featu ...

was designated a national park on 1 March 2005. The

South Downs The South Downs are a range of chalk hills that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, in the Eastbourne Downland Estate, East Sussex, in the eas ...

, the last of the 12 areas chosen in the 1947 Hobhouse Report, was designated as

South Downs National Park The South Downs National Park is England's newest national park, designated on 31 March 2010. The park, covering an area of in southern England, stretches for from Winchester in the west to Eastbourne in the east through the counties of Hamp ...

by the Secretary of State

Hilary Benn Hilary James Wedgwood Benn (born 26 November 1953) is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Leeds Central since a by-election in 1999. He served in the Cabinet from 2003 to 2010, under both Tony Bl ...

in March 2009. The structure set up by the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 was amended by: *the

Environmental Protection Act 1990 The Environmental Protection Act 1990 ( initialism: EPA) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that defines, within England and Wales and Scotland, the fundamental structure and authority for waste management and control of emissions ...

, which created the

Nature Conservancy Council The Nature Conservancy Council (NCC) was a United Kingdom government agency responsible for designating and managing National Nature Reserves and other nature conservation areas in Great Britain between 1973 and 1991 (it did not cover Norther ...

(which later became

and transferred functions of the

to the

Countryside Council for Wales The Countryside Council for Wales (CCW; cy, Cyngor Cefn Gwlad Cymru (CCGC)) was a Welsh Assembly sponsored body responsible for wildlife conservation, landscape and countryside access authority for Wales. It was merged with Forestry Commis ...

) *the

Environment Act 1995 The Environment Act 1995c 25 passed under the ministerial tutelage of John Gummer, is a United Kingdom Act of Parliament which created a number of new agencies and set new standards for environmental management. See also *English land law *UK en ...

, under which each national park is now operated by its own National Park Authority *the

Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (c. 37), known informally as the CRoW Act or "Right to Roam" Act is a United Kingdom Act of Parliament affecting England and Wales which came into force on 30 November 2000. Right to roam The Act imp ...

, under which AONBs are now designated Further amendments are made by the

Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 The Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 (c 16), also referred to as the NERC Act (2006), is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. In a reorganisation of public bodies involved in rural policy and delivery, the measures d ...

, under which

, the

and the Rural Development Service merged on 1 October 2006 to form new bodies called

and the

Commission for Rural Communities The Commission for Rural Communities (CRC) was established as a division of England's Countryside Agency on 1 April 2005, and became a non-departmental public body on 1 October 2006, following the enactment of the Natural Environment and Rural Co ...

External links

* {{UK legislation National parks of England and Wales United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1949