WITH a little over a month remaining before the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' (Defra) deadline on the decision whether Woolmer and Longmoor will be included in the National Park, campaigners are urging locals to have their say. Both the South Downs Society (SDS) and the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) are keen to keep the issue in the public arena, before the recently extended deadline of September 23. This week, the SDS called on the government to go along with its own environmental advisers, in setting up a South Downs National Park with wide boundaries. A major public inquiry held between 2003 and 2005 heard evidence, for and against the national park, and the report from the Inquiry Inspector has at last been made public. But, while the inspector has come out firmly in favour of setting up the park, he has recommended leaving out some attractive small towns and villages and a large area in West Sussex and Hampshire, which lies north of the familiar chalk ridge. "It's great news that we now look almost certain to get the national park" said South Downs Society director, Jacquetta Fewster, "but it's devastating that, after all the hard work by the society, the South Downs Campaign and others, a big piece of the land identified for the park by the government's own Countryside Agency, could now be left without the proper planning protection and management that the national park would bring." With locals concerned about the threat posed by developers, should the Longmoor ranges be outside the national park, the body is urging people to comment on the plans. The society is calling on everyone who shares its concerns for the park to respond vigourously to the consultation, to contact their MP and to sign the online petition at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/">http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/ western-weald.
