The future of a beloved Somerset beauty spot is hanging in the balance in the face of planned government budget cuts.

In addition to its national parks, the UK is home to 46 national landscapes – formerly known as areas of outstanding natural beauty or AONBs – which cover 15 per cent of England (including 20 per cent of the coastline).

Somerset is home to three national landscapes – the Blackdown Hills (which includes the Wellington Monument), the Quantock Hills (including Fyne Court) and the Mendip Hills (including Cheddar Gorge).

But the future of these extraordinary landscapes is under threat thanks to the government's spending review, which will see Defra's budget slashed – with national landscapes bearing the brunt.

Chancellor of the exchequer Rachel Reeves MP's first budget, which was delivered on October 30, envisioned that Defra's "departmental expenditure limit" (i.e. its day-to-day budget for predicted spending, rather than emergency events) will fall in real terms by 1.9 per cent from 2024/25 to 2025/26.

Reports in The Guardian since the budget have indicated that the resulting savings will be spread across all elements of Defra – and that the national landscapes teams have been told to plan for a 12 per cut to their funds.

Jim Hardcastle, manager of the Mendip Hills National Landscape team, said that cutting funding on this scale would make it much harder to carry out vital conservation work across the region and to meet the government's own targets for environmental improvement.

He said: "I'm genuinely worried about these cuts. The Mendip Hills, and other national landscapes, can provide real solutions for the climate and ecological crisis, as well as helping the government to meet international targets for 30×30 – this is, 30 per cent of the land and sea being protected for nature by 2030.

"The potential cuts that ministers may apply to Defra and the national landscape teams will mean we're going to struggle to deliver those

solutions.

"These cuts will also inevitably lead to job losses. We are only a staff of ten for the whole of the Mendip Hills, and I'm not sure how we will manage."

National landscapes receive more visitors combined than all the UK's national parks, and cover almost double the area of the parks put together.

However, they only receive around one-sixth of the core funding the national parks enjoy, and have already endured their budgets being cut by 40 per cent since 2010.

Further reductions in staff will make it harder to bid for external funding for individual projects – such as the ongoing upgrades to the Gorge Walk along Cheddar Gorge, being carried out by the National Trust in partnership with Heidelberg Materials.

Andy Wear, chairman of the Mendip Hills National Landscape Partnership, said: "Funding cuts will have huge ramifications for everyone on the Mendip Hills.

"All of the hedge laying and dry-stone wall building will end. The environmental benefits will be gone."

The national landscapes are also under "significantly higher levels of pressures" from both farming and development compared to the national parks – with Cheddar and Wells both experiencing significant housing growth.

John Watkins, chief executive of the National Landscapes Association, added: "Twenty-five years ago, the new Labour government was advised by the Countryside Commission to increase funding for national landscapes to £19M (£35M in today's money), but they didn't heed that advice.

"Twenty-five years later, we are in the same situation with a new Labour government, but with the threat of further cuts in the face of a nature and climate crisis. We are calling on the government to truly invest in nature."

Wells and Mendip Hills MP Tessa Munt met with representatives from the national landscapes teams shortly before the Christmas parliamentary recess, vowing that she would fight for their budgets to be protected.

She said: "These landscapes are a precious and valuable asset – they should be protected, funded and cherished.

"How is the government planning to fulfil its own duty under the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act (LURA) 2023 to 'further the purposes of these landscapes', when the national landscapes that are already so inadequately funded, face unmanageable cuts?

"We're in the middle of a climate emergency, how can funding to these vital landscapes be cut?

"I believe that this is also a heritage emergency; these cuts threaten not only the biodiversity, but our rural heritage."

Ms Munt will be writing to environment secretary Steve Reed MP to make the case for the national landscapes early in the new year.

On January 24, 2025, the Climate and Nature Bill (introduced by fellow Liberal Democrat MP Roz Savage) will receive its second reading in the House of Commons.

If this private member's bill makes it to royal assent, it will force the government to meet strict targets for reducing emissions and reversing environmental damage to the UK by 2030.