Letter: National Parks: own worst enemy

Sir: Stephen Goodwin, in his report on the National Parks ("Business ploughs a green furrow", 17 February), helps to perpetuate the Parks myth by referring to them as "England and Wales's finest countryside". This is nonsense. The National Parks are, for the most part, upland areas, prone to a hostile climate at almost any time of year, and with very little of what the average Briton would class as "countryside".

The Parks are their own worst enemy. By so labelling themselves, they invite day-trippers. But their upland terrain seriously restricts communications, so that tourists in (for example) the Yorkshire Dales who wish to travel north-south are limited to just two or three single-track roads linking one dale to the next. Likewise, the various passes in the Lake District.

The best of the countryside is, perversely but perhaps fortunately, in those areas which are either more discreetly labelled (Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty; Environmentally Sensitive Areas) or not labelled at all. Shropshire and Dorset come immediately to mind.

The sooner we debunk the myth of the National Parks, the better. The Scots, remember, have no National Parks at all. If they feel no need for them, why do we hang on to this idea in the South?

A D EVANS

Nottingham