JOBS are to be axed at the Yorkshire Dales and Lake District national park authorities over the next four years because of a deep cut in Government grants.

The Government’s annual grant to the two national parks will fall by more than 28 per cent over the next four years.

The Lake District National Park Authority (LDNPA) and the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority (YDNPA) will see the funding they receive from central Government cut from the start of the next financial year.

Twelve jobs may also be lost at the LDNPA as part of a £522,000 savings commitment.

The savings, which staff were told about in a series of briefings earlier this week, will produce efficiencies and more effective ways of working and are due to come into effect by April 2011.

In the past year the authority has already reduced costs by £1.1 million, saving the equivalent of 30 jobs.

Members were told that exact details of the cut to the authority’s annual £7m grant from Defra were still unclear, but a 25 per cent reduction would mean the LDNPA would be short of £1.1 million by 2014/15.

Jobs are also to be axed at the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority over the next four years because of a cut in its government grant of more than 28 per cent.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has announced that the authority’s annual grant for next year will be £5.1m, falling to £4.2m by 2014-15.

This compares to a grant of £5.4m for the current financial year and represents a cut of 28.5 per cent, taking into account inflation, over the four-year period.

Authority chairman Carl Lis said: “It is impossible to pretend this is anything other than bad news and it clearly represents a major challenge over the four years.

“However, we are where we are so there is no point bleating about it.

"We have a responsibility to the national park, its communities and the country, so we will face up to the difficulties of putting together a budget that takes into account these cuts.”

The policy officer with landscape conservation charity Friends of the Lake District, Jack Ellerby, said he was disappointed by the Defra announcement adding that national park authorities gave great value for money to the taxpayer and they were visited each year by 40 million people.

“Coming out of the second world war national parks were created for the welfare of the whole nation,” he said.

“In this climate of hardship their role to lift people’s spirits and self-belief could not be greater.

“These budget cuts must not reduce the first class services which national park authorities provide, whether carefully managed public access and clearly signposted public rights of way, land management advice to farmers and landowners or positive planning guidance to help applicants get planning permission.”