NATIONAL park bosses have spoken of their concerns about conserving its landscapes as uncertainty surrounding Brexit and Government policies has seen a dramatic decline in the area covered by environmental stewardship schemes.

Chairman of the North York Moors National Park Authority Jim Bailey described a predicted fall from 68 per cent in 2016 to 60 per cent this year of land in the 554sq m park covered by environmental management legal agreements as “a real warning sign”.

Should officers’ predictions be realised they said the area under which land is formally being conserved under the schemes would drop to its lowest  since 2001.

A meeting of the authority’s finance and resources committee heard the falling area of land under initiatives such as the Government’s flagship agri-environment scheme, Countryside Stewardship, had sparked fears, Defra’s future funding for the projects was a more profound concern.

Mr Bailey told members: “That’s what I am most worried about because it has socio-economic benefits and because people need that extra environmental input to their businesses to make them viable. So if we lost our spend as a total that would be a disaster. If we changed the focus on what they did on the ground that may be no bad thing. So what we must do is try to protect the total spend for agri-environment work in the park.”

The national park authority’s concerns come alongside calls to the government to ensure farmers and landowners with environmental stewardship agreements do not lose out as post-Brexit environmental land management payments are brought in.

The sharp drop-off in farmers taking up the agri-environment schemes follows indications that post-Brexit agriculture policies will support more straightforward initiatives. This has led to a reluctance among farmers to sign up to current five-year stewardship schemes and potentially restrict their access to post-Brexit projects.

When asked if he felt schemes outlined in Defra’s 25-year Environment Plan would boost the park’s conservation objectives, he said: “The devil’s in the detail, but I think there is a commitment that we do a good job for these things in the future.”