ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the development of National Parks and National Nature Reserves in the 1950s, the idea of Country Parks and Forest Parks grew in the 1960s. The idea of the Country Park crosses many boundaries and many existing public open spaces, National Trust properties, nature reserves, and other lands deliver all or part of the leisure experience to the visitor. For the first twenty years of the Countryside Commission, the Country Park was at the heart of the delivery of countryside recreation. Whilst, as pointed out by, the Commission saw recreational benefits as spin-offs from commercial work. Patmore observed how water is a great lure and attractant to visitors and that, by the 1960s and 1970s, there was an explosion in the recreational and sporting use of water-bodies. It also examines, In the current times of economic austerity there are serious issues of the economics and viability of such services.