Examination of Witnesses (Questions 155-159)
MR JO
BURGON, MR
TONY BURTON
AND MR
GWYN WILLIAMS
9 JUNE 2008
Chairman: We now move on to our second
set of witnesses this afternoon. Can I formally welcome the National
Trust in the shape of Jo Burgon, the Head of Access and Recreation,
and Tony Burton, the Director of Strategy and External Affairs,
and from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Gwyn Williams,
who is the Head of Reserves and Protected Areas. Dan Rogerson
will start our questioning.
Q155 Dan Rogerson: Natural England
have been asked to do a huge piece of work here. In general do
you think that the amount of power which they are being given
to create the route and spreading room is about right?
Mr Burgon: I think it is rather
a clever piece of legislation that has been proposed in terms
of using the 1949 Act and the modification to the CROW Act, but
when you get into the coast the regulatory regime and the intensity
of use I think is putting an additional burden on Natural England
over and above what they have for managing mountain, moor, heath
and down, and so, whilst it will take a different form of putting
this into place compared to the mapping exercise they went through
with the CROW Act, I think it is that long-term relationship that
they are going to have to sustain here because of the changing
nature of the coast and the adjustments to the route and the spreading
room over time where they are into a strong regulatory regime
and working very closely with local authorities. I think that
balance between the power and the responsibilities of Natural
England and those of local authorities as access authorities still
needs to be clarified. It is not to me clear in the Bill how this
is going to be enacted.
Q156 Dan Rogerson: You are not necessarily
saying that the Bill has got it wrong and Natural England has
got too much power?
Mr Burgon: There is something
about their visibility. One of the things is that they have a
responsibility for protecting nature conservation interests on
the coast through their responsibilities for Natura 2000 sites
(and, of course, they are judge and jury in terms of making this
provision) plus their responsibilities for conservation, and they
can do that a little bit behind closed doors whereas they have
a responsibility to consult with English Heritage and the Environment
Agency as specified in the Bill. I do not know how you set that
out in legislative terms but it does seem to me that there is
quite a lot they could be doing behind closed doors and I think
there needs to be a greater level of accountability that is seen
by the public at large.
Q157 Chairman: Can I just pick you
up on a bit of interesting language you used in the introduction?
In response to Mr Rogerson's first question you said it was "a
clever piece of legislation" which almost got through to
me as, "This is a bit of legislative sharp practice".
Instead of having a bespoke piece of legislation that perhaps
reflects the complexity of the coastal margins as they did with
the CROW Act in terms of the inland areas, the feeling I got was
that they looked around for a quick fix to their problem.
Mr Burgon: I do not mean that
at all. I think it is just an interesting conjunction between
the 1949 Act, which creates the mechanism by which you put this
route in place, and how the modification to the Countryside and
Rights of Way Act creates the right of access over that route
with adjoining spreading room.
Q158 Chairman: The reason I also
asked that is that at the start of your evidence you say, "The
National Trust supports the development of a continuous route
on foot". "Supports the development"—that
has the feel of something as a continuous act, something that
will evolve, not being imposed by government on everybody on a
sort of take-it-or-leave-it basis. Am I interpreting your words
correctly or not?
Mr Burgon: I am not quite sure
whether you are.
Mr Burton: I think it is probably
an issue about the time frame for implementation and resources.
Q159 Chairman: Did you as an organisation,
as major landowners who have a major interest, ever write a letter
to Defra saying, "We think it is a very good idea. We think
you ought to do it"?
Mr Burton: More that Defra would
have come to us to look at how we had done it than the other way
round.
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