A NATIONAL park authority has revealed plans to shed 30 workers and slash services after losing a third of its funding.

Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority’s (YDNPA) £5.7m annual budget will be reduced by just under £2m over the next four years.

Authority chiefs are proposing to make 15 voluntary and three compulsory redundancies, as well as four compulsory retirements and cancel ten fixed-term contracts to balance the books.

It is also proposed to reduce the hours of seven staff members and cancel two vacancies.

A long list of additional cuts has been outlined in the draft budget for 2011-12, which will go before members on Thursday.

These include:

* Cutting back on the amount of rights-of-way maintenance;

* Reducing funds for climate change programmes, including hydro-power schemes;

* Closing the national park centre service in Reeth from 2013;

* Reducing funding for the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust, with funding stopped from April 2013;

* Closing two public toilets;

* Cancelling funding for public transport programmes, events and education.

Chief executive David Butterworth admitted that further cuts would be needed over the next three years.

He said: “It was a tough settlement and was worse than expected, but we’re not the only ones in this position, so we need to get on with it and do the best we can for the national park, those who live and work in the area and the millions of people who visit each year.”

Mr Butterworth said he was personally very disappointed at the need to lose so many staff. “Some of those people I’ve spent a lot of time with and I know they’ve been absolutely committed to conservation in general and the national park in particular,” he added.

He went on to criticise the Government for failing to take account of “performance or how valuable something was”

when deciding what to cut.

“There seems to be a headlong rush into making cuts wherever they fall,” he said.

A report for members states that the authority would maintain front-line services wherever possible.

It would also maintain the quality of key services and, if that was not possible, it should stop providing them.