Proposed ‘Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’ Designation

A Response from the Yorkshire Wolds Heritage Trust

The Yorkshire Wolds is one of two areas currently being considered by Natural England (the Government agency with the responsibility to decide whether a part of England should be designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB)).  

The Yorkshire Wolds Heritage Trust is a voluntary Chartered Incorporated Organisation originally set up in 1991 by people from all walks of life with a keen interest in researching, informing, safeguarding and enhancing the heritage and landscape of the Wolds. The collective knowledge and experience of the local area has made the Trust a regular consultee in many of the past official policy decisions. Its members recognise that the present proposals could provide a nationally recognised well informed organisation dedicated to the long term economic, scenic and cultural interests of the Yorkshire Wolds as an identifiable very interesting and unspoilt rural area. 

A historic turning point – questions need to be asked and reassurances given.

The Trust, along with other organisations such as the Council for the Protection of Rural England and The Local Ramblers’ Association, has always felt that the area should have been given national designation at the same time as the neighbouring Hambleton Hills AONB and the Lincolnshire Wolds AONB were established. 

The area certainly qualifies under Natural England’s first two deciding questions: 1. sufficient natural beauty and 2. desirability to designate. However, the Trust has serious reservations over the third question (about the boundary of the proposed AONB). Natural England is proposing a main body for designation encompassing most of the northern and western Wolds only as far south as Market Weighton, with a separate narrow strip of headland round the Bempton/Flamborough headland. 

The existing proposals cut out most of the high south and east facing dip slope Wolds (including the valley of the elusive Gypsey Race) and the southern third of the Wolds from Market Weighton to the Humber estuary (see map above). This discounted southern part is essentially a microcosm of the rest - with isolated farmsteads set up during the Georgian period of “High Farming” protected behind their shelterbelts, the high rolling farmland dissected by the species rich grazings of the deep dry valleys, the pretty communities established around bubbling freshwater springs all along the base of the Wolds - all the heritage and scenic attributes of the rest of the Wolds. Furthermore it is virtually on the doorstep of Hull and its dormitory villages, indisputably right for designation - already served with good visitor facilities (well-marked popular footpaths, bridle ways, quiet lanes for cyclists, pubs, cafes, accommodation, even access to the national rail network at Brough and Hessle).

As long as the interests of the people living and working in and around the Yorkshire Wolds are adequately respected, and the visitor requirements such as clear and reliable signage, information and rights of way are provided and well maintained (expected responsibilities of all AONBs), the Trust is very much in support of a nationally recognised designation for the Wolds, but preferably with a contiguous boundary stretching from Filey beach to the Humber foreshore and including the Great Wold Valley of the Gypsey Race and the Jurassic foothills below the Western slopes – actually the area that local people have probably recognised as the Wolds since…..? For ever.

Contribute to the discussion

You can find a response form on Natural England’s website  https://consult.defra.gov.uk/ne-landscape-heritage-and-geodiversity-team/yorkshire-wolds-designation or ask a friend with internet access to download the form for you to complete and send a postal response (by midnight on Monday 13th January 2025).