ORDNANCE Survey is already in trouble with some for deciding to exclude disused churches from the detail of its new generation of maps. But what was not realised, until today, was that it also intends to wipe national parks off its maps.

The Lake District National Park Authority is so alarmed that it is spearheading a nationwide campaign to get OS to change its mind. The Yorkshire Dales are also involved.

OS claims that the move is designed to reduce clutter now that it is obliged to include extra detail, made necessary by the introduction of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act.

This is doubly galling for the national parks as they have been charged with the responsibility of managing these rights of access inside their boundaries.

The OS further claims its own research has told it that its customers see national park boundaries as superfluous to their needs.

That seems unlikely. When Park officers talk to visitors they say the opposite.

Certainly anyone who wants to submit a planning application needs to know from a map whether they fall within the parks, with their extra stringent regulations.

According to Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Collins - one of four whose constituencies include areas of the park and have been alerted to help with the campaign - visitors are more careful about behaviour like dropping of litter when they know they are in a national park.

National parks were recently criticised by the Audit Commission for not promoting awareness of their role. It would seem a cruel blow if this very obvious way of being established in people's perceptions was now removed.

If anyone is tempted to think that maps don't matter, just consider what happened after local government reorganisation in 1974. We were assured that the new counties, like Cumbria, were administrative areas only, and that the old county boundaries would remain.

Try to find a map printed in the last 30 years that has Cumberland, Westmorland or Lancashire North of the Sands. Cumbria has become firmly established everywhere outside its own boundaries.

Although there is no suggestion of anything sinister about the parks being wiped off the map by OS, it is no wonder the park authorities are nervous.

OS has graciously said that, even though its consultation period is over, it could still be swayed by public opinion.

We urge readers to add their names to the protest by contacting OS direct.

Down the drain

The long-standing battle over whether to put fluoride into the mains water supply has been reopened by reports that a proposal to switch the responsibility for treating water would shift from the hands of water companies to strategic health authorities is included in a Water Bill due to go before Parliament later this month.

Among the heated complaints about dictatorial actions and mass medication without consent, there is one other factor often neglected.

If fluoride is in the mains water, the vast majority of it would not be drunk, but would rather be poured down the sinks, effluent pipes and sewers. This would seem to be a considerable waste of money.

May 16, 2003 11:00