Roads to Ruin
There seems a good case for the suggestion that a 'rural Buchanan Report' should be commis- sioned to consider the traffic problems of the National Parks. The suggestion has come from a body which is seeking to protect the Lake District National Park from the destructive effects of road modernisation. The whole point of designating such areas as national parks was to mark them off from all the processes which are causing most of the countryside to lose its traditional character. It may seem odd to find people actually resisting the idea of road improvements, but it is senseless to build big new roads to carry people to see a landscape which will be ruined by those same roads. As the Buchanan Report said, 'Unless the greatest care is exercised it will be easily within our ability to ruin this island by the end of the century.' That report, of course, was largely con- cerned with traffic in towns. An inquiry into traffic in these special rural areas would be far simpler. The main point I would hope to see, it make would be that we must either settle for very limited motor access or, in effect, abandon t40 idea of preserving them. A dangerous omission in the planning control of National Parks should also bedealt with. At present, to erect even a porch round a cottage door needs planning per- mission: yet the planning authority has no right even to comment on road-making plans of the most far-reaching character, which are the high- way authorities; sole concern.
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