Environment: Park life intrigue puts `Archers' to flight

Stand aside Ambridge - your everyday story of rural intrigue beloved by Radio 4 listeners is about to be upstaged in real life.

The soap opera faces competition tomorrow when the 24-strong board of the Brecon Beacons National Park will meet to consider "no confidence" motions in both its chief executive, Martin Fitton, and the chairman, Gwyn Gwillim, a local councillor.

The clash is the culmination of a long-running dispute. Ostensibly, it's over accusations that Mr Fitton, a no-nonsense Yorkshireman, took it on himself to publish members' expenses without permission. But, like all good soaps, there's more to it than that.

For when Mr Gwillim protested, he claims he was ordered out of the chief executive's office. "Mr Fitton said `Get that man out of here'. I was flabbergasted," Mr Gwillim said yesterday.

An appeal to call in independent legal advisers to give the park - a quango employing 100 with a budget of pounds 2m a year - the once-over, was rejected by Mr Fitton.

Claiming that until recently relations had been harmonious, Mr Fitton said: "I'm saddened because this sort of thing hinders our work. I do not see the point calling in outside help - what terms of reference could be offered?"

Criticism has surfaced at meetings staged by the park to gauge public opinion over its future plans. Earlier this month, the authority had to shell out pounds 37,500 in costs to an Abergavenny haulage company following a public inquiry into the park's opposition to expansion plans.

And a question mark hangs over the future of a mobile slaughter-house - a mini-abattoir on wheels costing more than pounds 100,000 - that has scarcely been used since it arrived last year.