§ Mr. Steenasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will set up an inquiry on the extent to which military use of Dartmoor for artillery and mortar fire damages the terrain.
§ Mr. Denis HowellNo. I would refer the hon. Member to paragraph 295 of Lady Sharp's report on Dartmoor published last year. It was agreed at her inquiry that there should be arrangements for regular consultation between the Armed Forces, the national park authority and others about the effects of the military training and ways of reducing the damage without seriously impairing the efficiency of the training. Lady
516WSharp recommended consultation machinery reporting regularly to my right hon. Friends, the Secretaries of State for Defence and the Environment. In the White Paper (Cmnd. 6837) in June last year the Government welcomed this and on 24th January my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence informed the House that he hoped soon to announce the composition and terms of reference of a consultative body. This announcement should not be long delayed and I would expect the consultative machinery to report to my right hon. Friends on the matter which the hon. Member raises.
§ Mr. Steenasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will carry out research as to the extent to which continuous pitting of the peat in Dartmoor's national park with shell holes and wear of it by tracked vehicles may hasten a regression to the blanket bogs which in turn could threaten the water supply for the county of Devon.
§ Mr. Denis HowellNo. Paragraph 133 of Lady Sharp's report records the evidence of the Nature Conservancy Council that regression of the bogs has been observed for at least 40 years and is probably a natural phenomenon with no evidence that it is associated with military activities. I am not aware of any threat to water supplies from these causes and neither is the South-West Water authority which is responsible for water supplies in Devon.
§ Mr. Steenasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the number of holes per acre resulting from the military use of Dartmoor's national park in localities designated as sites of special historical and scientific interest.
§ Mr. Denis HowellI would refer the hon. Member to paragraph 39 of Lady Sharp's report which says that the national park authority put the number of holes in the impact areas on the Okehampton range at about 50 per acre, and to the evidence of the Nature Conservancy Council at paragraph 133 of her report that it had found the concentration even on the most densely cratered areas to be no more than 1.3 per cent. of the total area and, over the whole range, to be less than one-thousandth of the area. The 517W hon. Member probably has in mind the North Dartmoor site of special scientific interest which covers much the same area as the Okehampton and Willsworthy ranges, as is mentioned at paragraph 131 of the report.