The Future of the South Downs
Gerald Smart and Peter Brandon, Editors
Synopsis
The South Downs are among the best-loved landscapes in southern England. The beauty of their rolling chalk hills and steep escarpments, open river valleys, dramatic sea cliffs, sandy wealden ridges and woodlands, and colourful wildlife, has been an inspiration to writers and artists for centuries. The beauty is enjoyed daily by the 120,000 residents of local towns and villages, and the area attracts nearly 40 million visits a year, a total which is more than for any existing National Park.
The Downs are, nevertheless, essentially working countryside, landscapes that have changed, and are still changing, in response to farming and forestry practice. It is those activities that inhibited early planners and government from designating the South Downs as a National Park in 1949 along with the perceived wilder, sometimes mountainous, areas such as Dartmoor, the Lake District or Snowdonia. Recently in 2009, after lengthy public inquiries, the Government agreed that the area should at last become a National Park, and discussions about its administration are taking place.
The area the Park will cover encompasses the familiar chalk escarpments that stretch from Winchester in the west to the coast at Eastbourne in the east, and also includes the greensand areas to the north near Alresford and Alton, over to Blackdown south of Haslemere, and then on to Petworth, Steyning and to the country north of Lewes.
This book describes in a readable way the local, national and international value of the Downs and Western Weald, the problems arising from their multiple use, and the steps that have been, and can be, taken to conserve them. It provides all the necessary background for understanding the landscape history, aesthetics, economics, land use and conservation of the area, which can inform any debate about its future. The book contains maps of the first Countryside Agency proposal and of the Inquiry Inspector’s later proposal for the National Park area.
This book is the fourth in the Vulnerable and Threatened Environments of Britain series.
... This volume is impressive ...Every facet of the landscape, its past and present management, is surveyed...
Sussex Past & Present
...It will appeal to all who are interested in the South Downs and will be most useful to those of us who, with rather uneven knowledge, give talks, and will find the chapters on the archaeology, the landscape and the habitats particularly helpful.
The Downsman
...this book does successfully build a case as to why the South Downs deserves to be protected from the worst aspects of modern development and farming. Consistency of government-referred planning decisions would help and a National Park Authority should provide a powerful voice to allow the South Downs to survive in the pressured environment of a growing economy in south-east England.
Landscapes
...Being sandwiched between London and the south coast makes it [the South Downs area] all a tasty filling in an ever-pressing sandwich. We are all aware that unless we’re wise something’s got to give. We all need to be prepared. All the facts that you need to know are contained in a new book... This book is a treasure.
Chichester Observer Magazine.
Contents & Authors
Foreword, Lord Selborne; Introduction, Gerald Smart & Peter Brandon; The South Downs before and after 1939, Peter Brandon; Rocks and Relief, Rendel Williams; The Archaeology of the South Downs, David McOmish & Peter topping; The History of the South Downs Landscape, peter brandon; Habitats and their Importance, tony whitbread; The South Downs Economy and Society, trevor cherrett; The Role of Agriculture in the South Downs Landscape, patrick leonard; Forestry in the South Downs, donald macdonald; Water Resources Management, jason lavender; Countryside Recreation in the South Downs, paul millmore; Development Issues, martin small; Establishing the Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and their Management, phil belden & alison tingley; A South Downs National Park? gerald smart; Sustainability: a Vision for the South Downs, gerald smart & peter brandon; Index.
The Editor
Gerald Smart is Emeritus Professor of Planning at University College London and formerly County Planning Officer for Hampshire. He has been a council member of the RSPB, and is currently on the council of the Solent Protection Society. He was appointed CBE in 1991 for services to strategic planning.
Peter Brandon is a former Head of the Department of Geography at the University of North London. He is a well-known author on landscape history, and is a Vice-President of the Sussex branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) and of the Sussex Archaeological Society, and President of the South Downs Society (formerly the Society of Sussex Downsmen).
Date of Publication: 31 October 2007
ISBN: 978 185341 137 3 (paperback only)
Pages: 252, including 42 pages of colour and black & white photos, maps and line drawings
Dimensions: 297 x 210 mm; weight: 918 grammes
Price: £25.00
Distribution
Concentration has been on bookshops in the South Downs area. Nationally, the mail-order booksellers, Natural History Book Service (NHBS) Environment Bookstore, Totnes, Devon, and Summerfield Books of Skelton, Penrith, Cumbria, stock the book. Customers may always order direct from the publisher and pay by credit/debit card or cheque, though postage and packing of £3.00 will be charged.