I would like to make three short points in response to Robin Crane's letter in The Argus (April 21).

Firstly, Mr Crane disputes it is the Government which has moved the goal posts on national parks.

Why, then, did the independent, apolitical judge back the legal arguments made by West Sussex County Council at the South Downs Inquiry?

That is why the Government was forced to rush through this change to the law.

The judge has no axe to grind on national parks, whereas the Government, and Mr Crane, have openly pushed for a national park.

Consequently, we need to reopen the public inquiry so the public can fully discuss the new law.

Secondly, Mr Crane says a national park will be better funded. Let us deal in facts instead of rumours.

The Countryside Agency and the Government have refused to say what the budget for a South Downs National Park Authority would be.

If there is a new pot of gold available for the Downs, which is extremely doubtful given the severe cutbacks existing national park authorities have recently endured, then why do we need to call it a national park to get extra funding?

Why can't our unique landscape have better financial support now?

Thirdly, Mr Crane says a national park will be better protected.

The Sussex Downs Area of Outstanding National Beauty has exactly the same protection in law as a national park.

Therefore, there will be no better protection for the vast majority of the proposed national park.

Indeed, one can argue a National Park would add more pressure on the environment of the South Downs, already the most visited landscape in the UK, because part of a National Park authority's remit is to encourage more visitor numbers.

All this with the added drawback that the South Downs would no longer be democratically accountable to local residents but rather, in large part, controlled by political appointees parachuted in from Whitehall by the Secretary of State instead.

-Henry Smith, leader of West Sussex County Council