Lord Blencathra (Con)

My Lords, I strongly support Amendment 119 and agree with the excellent case set out by my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe. My support comes from two cases in my constituency some years ago, caused by the forerunner of Natural England. I think it was the Countryside Commission at the time, and then it was the Countryside Agency, before being amalgamated into Natural England. These two cases simply demonstrate the point that my noble friend has been making. They were a couple of years apart, but the issues were the same, and they have annoyed me to this day because I was absolutely powerless to help small businesses in my constituency. The first was on creating the Pennine Bridleway, and later a national trail alongside Hadrian’s Wall, both of which had many miles in my constituency. Some of that opened in 2002, some in 2006, and some is not opened yet, but the approval process in principle started either in the late 1980s or early 1990s. The plan was to make these national trails and encourage thousands more people to use them—no bad thing in itself, and I liked the idea. Local farmers were generally not opposed, since they thought they could get involved in providing services to the walkers and riders. Farmers and householders along Hadrian’s Wall said that, without toilet facilities en route, their stone walls—or behind them—had become toilets. With no cafeterias for miles, sandwich wrappers and uneaten food were dumped in their fields and were a hazard to sheep. They said it would be good for them if they could convert a barn into a coffee shop or toilets, as a quid pro quo for letting thousands of people march over their land. It seemed a very good idea to me at the time to assist small farmers in this way. This was in the wilds of northern Cumbria, near the Scottish border, where some farms had more rushes than grass. It used to be called marginal land but the EU terminology is “severely disadvantaged area”. The lush land of East Anglia it is not. They need every opportunity there to make money and survive. Farmers on the route of the proposed Pennine Bridleway also wanted to convert some barns into tack rooms, providing food and water for people and horses, and parking space for their trailers. Only a few riders would want to traverse its whole length, or at least the stretches which were open; most wanted to park up and ride a loop of about 15 miles or so. Again, that was a reasonable suggestion which I thought would benefit everyone: walker and riders, the local farmers who would have them on their land, and the environment, which would not be desecrated with rubbish. But that was not to be. The Countryside Commission said, “Nothing to do with us”. Its job was the trails and bridleway, and it did not care about helping the rural businesses along the route. It was purely a local planning matter. To hear that from a body set up with a remit of helping rural businesses, I was appalled and angered. It would not even publish a statement suggesting to local councils that it might be a jolly good idea to support planning applications which would provide those small infrastructure developments. I approached the local councils, which said they could not comment until an official planning application was received and would not bend the rules to look favourably on them in principle. I ended up opposing something that I thought was a good thing because of the recalcitrance of government bodies and local councils that would do absolutely nothing to help small businesses in their own patch. I may be wrong but to this day I do not think that a single farm or private building on either of those routes has been given planning permission for even a simple tearoom. That is why I support my noble friend.