Worcestershire | Archive | 2004 | September | 10
From the archive, first published Friday 10th Sep 2004.
THE new management plan for the Malvern Hills Area of Outstand-ing Natural Beauty is being launched next month.
The launch is at Colwall Parish Church on Friday, October 1, in front of an audience of invited guests.
The programme of events will include an address by Prof Aubrey Manning, who has presented many TV programmes about landscapes and whose radio series The Sound of Life is currently being broadcast on Radio 4.
Mike Grace, a director of the Countryside Agency, will then explain the themes of the management plan and guests will also be able to examine an exhibition entitled Finest Landscapes.
The last plan was produced in 1996.
Since, then there have been many changes, not least an obligation under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act for local authorities to produce and review management plans at five-year intervals.
Among the aims of the new plan are to highlight the special qualities of the AONB, present a vision for its future, set out agreed policies to help secure that vision and devise an action and monitoring scheme.
The new plan has been under consideration since September 2002 and in that time parish councils and other local authorities have been consulted.
Among the issues covered in it will be conservation, tourism, agriculture, transport and public access.
The Malvern Hills AONB was founded in 1959.
Its boundaries extend beyond the hills to encompass Bromsberrow to the south, Colwall, Mathon and Cradley to the west and the Suckley Hills area to the north.
© Newsquest Media Group 2008