NATIONAL Parks are at the heart of the Government's strategy for sustainable development, a Government Minister said this week.

Alun Michael, Rural Affairs Minister, was addressing the National Park Authorities' conference in Hexham on Wednesday and said that, if national parks were not to become museums of the landscape, they must be successful in economic and social terms.

"We believe passionately in sustainable development - a future in which economic, social and environmental considerations are balanced in harmony," he said.

National parks would be the test-beds for sustainable development. "They are national assets identified because they are, with areas of outstanding natural beauty, our most beautiful and precious landscapes and ones which are especially desirable to conserve and enhance for us to understand and enjoy," said Mr Michael.

The Government's first priority was to protect them for the future, encourage understanding, and to promote their recreational use.

"But it is also crucial to promote the economic and social success of the communities that live in our national parks," he said. The parks could show the way forward for all rural areas, whose well-being was central to Defra's priorities.

Regional Development Agencies and local government representatives recently got together with representatives of national parks and AONBs to develop a strategy for the future.

"In each region of England, these partners will set out their joint plans for joint action and I will publish these as a consolidated document by the end of the year," the Minister said.

It reflected the government's priorities for rural areas, contained in the Rural White Paper of November 2000.

"Despite the distractions of foot-and-mouth, and we are doing more than any Government in the past to help the countryside," Mr Michael claimed.

A rural public service agreement wold set challenging targets for improving service delivery and tied the performance of rural economies to the national economy. "We have a new rural service standard, and are working with the Countryside Agency to ensure that all areas of Government policy consider the needs of those living and working in rural areas," he said