Act of Parliament | |
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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. |
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Citation | 12, 13 & 14 Geo. 6. c. 97 |
Introduced by | Sir Arthur Hobhouse |
Territorial extent | England, Scotland and Wales |
Dates | |
Royal assent | 16 December 1949 |
Other legislation | |
Amended by | The Natural Resources Body for Wales (Functions) Order 2013 (portion) |
Relates to | |
Status: Amended | |
History of passage through Parliament | |
Records of Parliamentary debate relating to the statute from Hansard, at TheyWorkForYou | |
Records of Parliamentary debate relating to the statute from Hansard | |
Text of statute as originally enacted | |
Text of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk. |
The National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 (12, 13 & 14 Geo. 6. c. 97) is an 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 and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty in England and Wales, and also addressed public rights of way and access to open land.
The Act was passed in 1949 with all-party support, as part of the reconstruction of the UK by the Labour government after World War II.
The Act followed reports by:
The first 10 British national parks were designated as such in the 1950s under the Act in mostly poor-quality agricultural upland. An eleventh 'national park' in the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads was set up by a special Act of Parliament, the 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.
The structure set up by the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 was amended by:
Further amendments are made by the 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.
A site of special scientific interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an area of special scientific interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of Man. SSSI/ASSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in the United Kingdom are based upon them, including national nature reserves, Ramsar sites, Special Protection Areas, and Special Areas of Conservation. The acronym "SSSI" is often pronounced "triple-S I".
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There are five Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) in Wales, known from November 2023 as National Landscapes. AONBs are areas of countryside that have been designated for statutory protection, due to their significant landscape value, by initially the Government of the United Kingdom and later Welsh devolved bodies. Of the current five areas designated, four are wholly in Wales, with another spanning the Wales-England border, and in total AONBs account for 4% of Wales' land area.
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Local nature reserve (LNR) is a statutory designation for certain nature reserves in Great Britain. The Wild Life Conservation Special Committee established them and proposed a national suite of protected areas comprising national nature reserves, conservation areas, national parks, geological monuments, local nature reserves and local educational nature reserves.
Halsbury's Statutes of England and Wales provides updated texts of every Public General Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, Measure of the Welsh Assembly, or Church of England Measure currently in force in England and Wales, as well as a number of private and local Acts, with detailed annotations to each section and schedule of each Act. It incorporates the effects of new Acts of Parliament and secondary legislation into existing legislation to provide a consolidated "as amended" text of the current statute book.
The Planning Act 1990 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to make provision for repeals, consequential amendments, transitional and transitory matters and savings in connection with the consolidation of enactments in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, the Planning Act 1990 and the Planning Act 1990.
The Planning Act 1990 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to consolidate certain enactments relating to special controls in respect of hazardous substances with amendments to give effect to recommendations of the Law Commission.
Citation of United Kingdom legislation includes the systems used for legislation passed by devolved parliaments and assemblies, for secondary legislation, and for prerogative instruments. It is relatively complex both due to the different sources of legislation in the United Kingdom, and because of the different histories of the constituent countries of the United Kingdom.
The Distribution of Industry Act 1945 was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom intended to help redevelop areas, such as south-western Scotland, which depended heavily on specific heavy industries, and which had been hard-hit by unemployment in the inter-war period.
The Fire Services Act 1951 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which extended only to Great Britain.
The Game Act 1831 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which was passed to protect game birds by establishing a close season during which they could not be legally taken. The Act also established the need for game licences and the appointing of gamekeepers. It has covered the protection of game birds to this day.
The Piracy Act 1850, sometimes called the Pirates Repeal Act 1850, is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It relates to proceedings for the condemnation of ships and other things taken from pirates and creates an offence of perjury in such proceedings.
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The Police Act 1919 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which set up an alternative dispute resolution system within UK labour law for collective disputes involving members of staff in the police force. The current rules are now found under the Police Act 1996. Following the British police strikes in 1918 and 1919, the government decided that it was a threat to the public to allow strikes among the police force to take place. The Police Act 1919 prohibited police from joining a trade union that could take strike action protected by the Trade Disputes Act 1906, and provided an alternative in the Police Federation of England and Wales. A substitute for strikes was binding arbitration to resolve collective disputes.
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The Act 16 Cha. 1. c. 11, sometimes referred to as the Ecclesiastical Causes Act 1640, the Abolition of High Commission Court Act 1640, the High Commission Abolition Act 1641, the Abolition of the Court of High Commission Act, the High Commission Court Abolition Act, the Act for the Abolition of the High Commission, the Act for the Abolition of the High Commission Court, or the Act for the Abolition of the Court of High Commission, was an Act of the Parliament of England, passed by the Long Parliament. It abolished the Court of High Commission and repealed the clause in the Act of Supremacy 1558 that gave the Court legal authority. Horder said the Act 16 Cha. 1. c. 11 is "important". It is a precursor to the Self-Incrimination Clause which is included in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.