THE Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has confirmed a five per cent budget cut for the New Forest National Park.

The grant will be reduced to £4.2m as part of the £6.2bn public sector savings – a cut in real terms of £200,000.

NPA’s new chief executive Alison Barnes said the authority had been preparing for a likely reduction in its central government grant and had identified efficiencies over the past year.

However she was confident the NPA could still fulfil its obligations.

“We are obviously disappointed at the reduction in our grant but appreciate the difficulties being faced by all public bodies,” she said.

“We were anticipating cuts and have planned accordingly for this year to protect our delivery. However, it will be difficult to absorb any further reductions going forward without it having significant impact.”

She said: “Our grant to the New Forest Centre this year will go ahead; all our visitor services such as events and ranger activities will still run, our education team will continue to visit around 5,000 children a year, our planning team will continue to handle more than 1,000 applications a year.

“Defra announced that the Sustainable Development Fund – which has allocated over £750,000 to 80 projects with Forest communities over the past four years – will not be affected this year.

Defra has also reduced its funding for a move to shared premises with New Forest District Council at Lymington to £1.8m, but the move will still go ahead.

Ms Barnes added: “We are unable to continue in our current premises at Everton as the planning permission expires soon. The refit of the Lymington Town Hall buildings will now have to be scaled down but we are confident we can still get a good solution for our visitors, staff and tax payers.”

A Defra spokesman said: “All Defra’s main arm’s length bodies have had their funding reduced by five per cent as part of our contribution to the £6.2billion efficiency savings this financial year.

“It will be up to each individual organisation to revise their plans to reflect this reduced funding, but we expect them to protect frontline services as much as they can by first looking for efficiency savings or reducing back office costs.”