YDNPA Consultation

adam

Member
The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority are currently consulting on their 5-year management plan. It's a short, open survey and only takes a few minutes. It's a good opportunity to highlight the value of caves and caving, as well as any other issues you care to raise.
http://your.yorkshiredales.org.uk/
 

braveduck

Active member
To few questions ,seems a bit mediocre to me .
I think they had to be seen to do it .
I suspect it is small enough to ignore unfortunatly. :( 
 

nickwilliams

Well-known member
The NPA have statutory duty to put the proposed management plan out for consultation. This questionnaire will be an attempt to get more engagement from the affected communities but it should not prevent anyone who wants to make specific comments on the proposals from sending in a detailed and considered critique.

Our Parish Council was faced with a very similar exercise by PDNPA earlier in the year. By combining forces with other interested parties through the Peak Park Parishes Forum we were able to get to grips with the content of the complicated policy documents much more quickly, and I'm sure our comments will have had more traction with the NPA since they were co-ordinated with all the other parishes in the Park.

As PC Chairman, I made sure our comments included some cave and mine relevant stuff!

It's important not to just shrug this sort of thing off by saying 'well they will never listen to us anyway': even if that were true (and in my experience if the response is relevant, cogent and to the point then it will be considered) you still need to be able to say 'I told you so' when some problem you have raised in the consultation comes back to bite the NPA in the future.

I imagine that CNCC are already on the case with this, but if not they should be. I can provide copies of the responses which were made by the Forum and direct by our PC if they are of interest to anyone who really wants to get into this.

 

Badlad

Administrator
Staff member
Correct. 

CNCC have discussed this with the National Park several times in recent months.  Our aim is to boost the profile of caving within the NP, improve education, conservation and access, encourage participation, promote the activity etc.  The CNCC will help the NP deliver the new plan where it is relevant to caving.

We are aware that the new plan will take account of DEFRA's '8 point plan for England's National Parks'.  Point 8 states,
"realise the immense potential for outdoor recreation in National Parks".  That aspect includes caving of course.

I'd encourage everyone to fill in the survey and mention the words 'CAVE' and 'CAVING' as much as possible.  This really does help.

Nick - I'll happily take a look at what you have got.
 

Badlad

Administrator
Staff member
The results are out.  Very positive for caving too.  Well done to everyone who responded.  Caving even made the top five 'loves' of all respondents, in fact the document is like a stick of rock with 'caving' written right through it. CNCC will help take this forward where possible. 

A few selected quotes;

"In terms of areas for improvement, there were a wide range of views. The most numerous revolved around:
1. Access opportunities (notably maintenance and improvement of footpaths, access to caves and support for public transport)"

"This time around there has been strong representation about improving cave access from Countryside and Rights of
Way Access land, similar to the opportunities that already exist for climbing."

Full details..

http://www.yorkshiredalesmanagementplan.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/1001814/Report-of-consultation-August-2017.pdf

 
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