Most asked: Tania Hunt and Diana Adamson, SDNPA support service officers.

June 8, 2018

Answers to questions about a particular area of work in the National Park – some sent in to our newsletter and others that we get asked all the time.

Answering this month are: Tania Hunt and Diana Adamson, SDNPA support service officers.

I run a local information booth. Are you happy for us to take leaflets from your front desk area to re-stock our shelves?

All of our leaflets are available from Brochure Connect who supply them free of charge. You’ll need to register with them so that you can then order them online.

What time do the gates open to the park?

This question comes in all the time from international visitors. We let them know that there aren’t gates, the South Downs National Park covers an area of 1,627km2 and stretches for 100 miles from Winchester in the west to Eastbourne in the east through the counties of Hampshire, West Sussex and East Sussex.

We’ll ask what they’re hoping to see and what sort of landscape interests them so we can guide them to the best places to visit.

How do I get hold of a planning officer? There’s a piece of land for auction and I want to know if I need planning permission before I buy it?

Unfortunately we do not have a duty officer here on site, so we ask people to put all enquiries in writing. There are so many variables in planning within a National Park so the team need to look at each case individually and come back with an assessment in writing. We’ll direct people to the ‘do I need planning permission’ form on our website.

I would like to scatter ashes in a specific place within the National Park. Is this possible?

Permission to scatter ashes must be given by the landowner and the SDNPA doesn’t own any land. Because of data protection we can’t supply details of owners of privately-owned land, but these can be obtained directly from the Land Registry website, on payment of a fee (currently £3).