View source for National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949

{{Use British English|date=August 2025}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox UK legislation
|short_title          = National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949<ref>The citation of this Act by this short title is authorised by [https://books.google.com/books?id=DzSyAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA2167 section 115(1)] of this Act.</ref>
|type                 = Act
|parliament           = Parliament of the United Kingdom
|long_title           = An Act to make provision for National Parks and the establishment of a National Parks Commission; to confer on the Nature Conservancy and local authorities powers for the establishment and maintenance of nature reserves; to make further provision for the recording, creation, maintenance and improvement of public paths and for securing access to open country, and to amend the law relating to rights of way; to confer further powers for preserving and enhancing natural beauty; and for matters connected with the purposes aforesaid.
|year                 = 1949
|citation             = [[12, 13 & 14 Geo. 6]]. c. 97
|introduced_by        = Sir [[Arthur Hobhouse]]
|territorial_extent   = England, Scotland and Wales
|royal_assent         = {{start date|1949|12|16|df=yes}}
|commencement         = 
|repeal_date          = 
|replaces             = 
|amends               = 
|amendments           = The Natural Resources Body for Wales (Functions) Order 2013 (portion)
|related_legislation  = {{ubli|[[Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000]]|[[Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006]]
*[[Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981]]
}}
|repealing_legislation= 
|status               = Amended
|original_text        = http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1949/97/pdfs/ukpga_19490097_en.pdf
|legislation_history  = http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/12-13-14/97/part/I?timeline=true
|use_new_UK-LEG       = yes
|UK-LEG_title         = National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act
|revised_text         = 
|theyworkforyou       = http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=1949-12-16a.3055.7&s=National+Parks+and+Access+to+the+Countryside+Act+1949#g3056.0
|millbankhansard      = https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1949/mar/17/national-parks-and-access-to-the
}}

The '''National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949''' ([[12, 13 & 14 Geo. 6]]. c. 97) is an [[Act of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Act]] of the [[Parliament of the United Kingdom]] which created the National Parks Commission which later became the [[Countryside Commission]] and then the [[Countryside Agency]], which became [[Natural England]] when it merged with [[English Nature]] in 2006.  The Act provided the framework for the creation of [[National parks of the United Kingdom|National Park]]s and [[Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty]] in [[England]] and [[Wales]], and also addressed [[Rights of way in England and Wales|public rights of way]] and access to open land.

==Background==
The Act was passed in 1949 with all-party support, as part of the reconstruction of the UK by the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] government after [[World War II]].

The Act followed reports by:
*a government committee chaired by [[Christopher Addison]] (later Viscount Addison) in 1931, 
*[[John Gordon Dower|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 [[Arthur Hobhouse|Sir Arthur Hobhouse]] in 1947, which proposed 12 national parks.

==National parks==
{{main|National parks of the United Kingdom}}
The first 10 British national parks were designated as such in the 1950s under the Act in mostly poor-quality [[agricultural]] [[Highland (geography)|upland]]. An eleventh 'national park' in the [[Norfolk]] and [[Suffolk]] [[The Broads|Broads]] was set up by a special [[Act of Parliament]], the [[Norfolk and Suffolk Broads Act 1988|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]] was designated a national park on 1 March 2005. The [[South Downs]], the last of the 12 areas chosen in the 1947 Hobhouse Report, was designated as [[South Downs National Park]] by the Secretary of State [[Hilary Benn]] in March 2009, making 15 national parks in total.

==Amendments==
The structure set up by the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 was amended by:
*the [[Environmental Protection Act 1990]], which created the [[Nature Conservancy Council]] (which later became [[Natural England]] and transferred functions of the [[Countryside Commission]] in [[Wales]] to the [[Countryside Council for Wales]])
*the [[Environment Act 1995]], under which each national park is now operated by its own National Park Authority
*the [[Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000]], under which AONBs are now designated
Further amendments are made by the [[Natural England|Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006]], under which [[English Nature]], the [[Countryside Agency]] and the [[Rural Development Service]] merged on 1 October 2006 to form new bodies called [[Natural England]] and the [[Commission for Rural Communities]].

==See also==
*[[National parks of the United Kingdom]]
*[[National parks of England and Wales]]
*[[Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty]]

==References==
*R. N. Hutchins and H. F. Full. The National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949. (Butterworths Annotated Legislation Service: Statutes Supplement No. 65). Butterworth & Co (Publishers) Ltd. 1950. Reviewed at "Legal Literature" (1951) [https://books.google.com/books?id=msowAQAAIAAJ 101] The Law Journal 12 (5 January 1951) and (1951) [https://books.google.com/books?id=efEwAQAAIAAJ 211] The Law Times 39 (19 January 1951)
*Norman Browning. National Parks and Access to the Countryside. Thames Bank Publishing Company. 1950. [https://books.google.com/books?id=sx9BAQAAIAAJ Google]
*Blunden and Curry. A People's Charter? Forty Years of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949. HMSO. 1990. [https://books.google.com/books?id=7IMfAQAAIAAJ Google]
*Ann Holt. A Charter for Whom? The Access Provisions of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, 1949. Ramblers' Association. 1990.
*"The National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949". Halsbury's Statutes of England. Second Edition. Butterworth & Company (Publishers) Ltd. 1950. [https://books.google.com/books?id=Y6MaAQAAMAAJ Volume 42]. Pages 465 and 890.
*"The National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949". Halsbury's Statutes of England. Third Edition. Butterworths. 1970. [https://books.google.com/books?id=jH9QAQAAIAAJ Volume 24]. Page 65. See also Preliminary Note at p 29.
*Desmond Heap. "National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, 1949". Encyclopedia of the Law of Town and Country Planning. Sweet & Maxwell. 1959. Paragraphs 2-465 to 2–595. [https://books.google.com/books?id=g11MAQAAIAAJ Google]
*Guy Seward. "National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949". Howard Roberts on the Law of Town and Country Planning. Second Edition. Charles Knight & Co. 1963. [https://books.google.com/books?id=9lAIAQAAIAAJ Volume 2]. Pages 761 to 844.
*Andrew Waite. "National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949". Butterworths Environmental Law Handbook. 1994. Page 3. [https://books.google.com/books?id=RVFKAQAAIAAJ Google]
*Michael J. Fry. "National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949". A Manual of Nature Conservation Law. Clarendon Press. 1995. Page 5. [https://books.google.com/books?id=ZdLuAAAAMAAJ Google]
*Stephen Chapman. "The National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, 1949". Statutes on the Law of Torts. Butterworths. 1962. Page 345.
*John Sheail. "The National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act of 1949 – its Origins and Significance". T C Smout (ed). Nature, Landscape and People since the Second World War. Tuckwell Press. 2001. Chapter 1. Pages 1 to 12. [https://books.google.com/books?id=AkLbAAAAMAAJ Google]
*Tom Stephenson. Ann Holt (ed). "The National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949". Forbidden Land: The Struggle for Access to Mountain and Moorland. Manchester University Press. 1989. Chapter 11. Pages [https://books.google.com/books?id=i89RAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA206 206] to 222.
*Peter Bromley. "National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act (1949)". Countryside Management. Taylor & Francis. 1990. Digital Printing. 2006. Chapter 3.2. Pages [https://books.google.com/books?id=GSn5AQAAQBAJ&pg=PA42 42] to 49.
*"National Parks" (1950) [https://books.google.com/books?id=XM2yAAAAIAAJ 28] The Canadian Bar Review 452
*"The National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, 1949" (1950) [https://books.google.com/books?id=CPEwAQAAIAAJ 210] The Law Times 147 (15 September 1950)
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*{{UK-LEG|title=National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949|type=ukpga|path=ukpga/1949/97}}

[[Category:National parks of England and Wales]]
[[Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1949]]