Peter Clinch said:Since they're rather arbitrary borders (especially in the case of the
Cairngorms NP), I'll put in a vote for none of them.
I agree that the Scottish national parks seem to make little sense, but
apparently they are a little different to those in England and Wales. The
national parks concept primarily applies to England and Wales.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_parks_of_England_and_Wales
I had thought of restricting it to only those, but it only seemed fair to
include the Scottish ones as well.
druidh said:I'll vote for that one too. Again, I've nothing against National
Parks, and I can see some the advantages of having them. But they're
a bit too arbitrary for me.
Agreed with regard to the Scottish ones, but the England and Wales parks
make a lot of sense. Certainly we can argue about finicky border details,
but on the whole they correspond pretty closely to the areas they represent.
Look at Wales for example, take the highest summits over an area of roughly
similar topographical and geological character, and what have you got?
Snowdonia! I've often wondered about the curious south-eastern border, but
when I recently compared it to a geological map I found that it corresponds
pretty closely. Same with the Beacons, basically it's an area of old red
sandstone summits, and the park boundary corresponds pretty closely to that.
Pembrokeshire coast? Again pretty logical. As is Dartmoor, Lake District,
New Forest, Broads and so on.
I'm not quite sure how much sense the the Pennine divisions make, but on the
whole, the England and Wales national parks make good topographical and
geological sense.
Scotland though? Well they're just silly. I'm no expert on Scottish
mountain divisions, but to be consistent with England and Wales there should
be a park centred around Ben Nevis at the very least, to correspond to
Snowdonia and the Lake District. The Isle of Skye would seem to be a
logical area too. As I mentioned in my previous post, there are many other
area designations (which aren't national parks) that include these places,
but for all I know the boundaries of those may be illogical too.
So I included the Scottish national parks so as not to be accused of leaving
Scotland out, but maybe I shouldn't have bothered?
Peter Clinch said:Inverpolly and
Knoydart aren't NPs and they're more beautiful and dramatic IMHO than
anything that is.
Richard Webb said:Even areas of Scotland that are largely ignored such as Tweedale would
be NPs if in England.
Then we have the really good bits - The Western Isles, Sutherland and
Coigach, Wester Ross.... and on and on....
I don't doubt that, but that's not what this poll is about. I'm not asking
what people think are the most beautiful or dramatic areas of the UK, I'm
simply asking what people's favourite national parks are, which is not the
same thing.
You, or anyone else who fancies it, are quite welcome to start another poll
about which is the most scenic, dramatic, wild, tranquil, remote or whatever
areas if you want.
Peter Clinch said:I'm not trying to imply that NPs aren't a Good Idea, as I think they
are, but declaring a piece of geography to be "favourite" just because
it has certain planning restrictions that something over the line on a
government map doesn't isn't something that appeals to me.
No, that's not what I'm asking. Snowdonia isn't my favourite piece of
geography simply because it's a national park, it would be anyway even if it
weren't, but that's not the question. It's simply a poll about national
parks. For better or worse, they are what they are.
I do wonder if you'd be so dismissive of the Scottish national parks if they
actually did correspond to the most scenic areas and had logical boundaries.
Paul
