The South Downs, a favourite beauty spot for millions of people living in London and the congested South East, is to become a national park.

Hilary Benn, the Rural Affairs Secretary, today gave the go-ahead for national park status on 627sq miles (more than 162,000 hectares), including Arundel, seat of the Duke of Norfolk, and Midhurst, rated one of the best locations in Britain in which to live by Country Life magazine.

The tract of countryside between Winchester and Eastbourne, home to 120,000 people, will be protected as one of the country’s most special places for walking and observing nature.

The new national park authority is to be set up next year and will become fully operational by 2011.

Times Archive, 1957: Corn ousts sheep on the South Downs

Many hold that the South Downs would have made one of the very best National Parks in the country

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It has been a long haul to achieve the national status for this part of East and West Sussex and Hampshire with rolling chalk uplands, wooded greens and river valleys. It was first recommended as a national park 60 years ago and it is more than a decade since John Prescott, the former deputy leader of the Labour Party, won a standing ovation at the party conference by promising to bring this about.

The new boundary will also include the western Weald, Lewes and the village of Ditchling. This area featured in the orginal park plan proposed seven years ago by the former Countryside Agency but was rejected by the planning inspector.

This decision marshalled an influential lobby of rural campaigners, led by Sir Martin Doughty, former chairman of Natural England, who died three weeks ago, and the writer Bill Bryson, president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, who insisted that the western Weald, which is already an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, should form part of the national park.

This prompted a rethink by the planning inspector in his final recommendations after a 19-month public inquiry.

Mr Benn said today: “Having considered the inspector’s report and recommendations carefully and agreed that the statutory criteria are met, I have decided that the South Downs, including the so-called western Weald, should be confirmed as a National Park.

“It is fitting that, in this year, the 60th anniversary of the radical legislation that gave birth to National Parks, we are celebrating an addition to the family.

“National Park status can be a real boost to the rural economy, attracting new visitors, businesses and investment, but above all, the South Downs’ wonderful countryside will be protected forever for the enjoyment of everyone.”

There will be some additional consultation on the precise boundary and minor changes may still be made, but supporters of the plan were thrilled with Mr Benn’s approval.

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