EXMOOR National Park Authority (ENPA) has secured £80,305 of funding on top of a one-off Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) payment, ensuring they can continue to provide public rights of way services despite being under threat.

Somerset County Council has agreed to a significant uplift of £37,259 on a flat rate over the next three years.

Devon County Council have also been able to identify £20,000 of capital, available for 2023-2024, for relevant works on public rights of way (PROW).

ENPA chief executive Sarah Bryan said: “Exmoor National Park Authority has historically provided a first-class rights of way service, and we are delighted that, with this financial help, we can continue to provide our direct delivery of PROW maintenance. 

“However, despite this contribution and a special payment we have received from DEFRA, we will still need to make financial adjustments. 

“The funding from DEFRA has been most gratefully received, but it only ‘buys us breathing space’ to fill some of our depleted reserves. 

“We still face significant financial challenges. This will impact the work we do to maintain our public rights of way, but we are working hard to minimise that impact as much as possible.”

Despite the recent funding, ongoing financial concerns will still lead to a cutback on Field Services.

The eight-strong field services team are key in helping maintain the public paths across the National Park; including replacing gates, and maintaining drains, paths and vegetation to ensure the easy use of paths. These services will be reduced under current plans.

The ENPA will also review their vegetation cutting programme for the upcoming summer. A reduction will take place, however, there will be more support for volunteers and people in the local community to get more involved.

Savings within the rangers and the office-based teams will also be impacted, particularly around our capacity to carry out path diversions, legal work, public communication, events management and special projects. 

Ms Bryan said: “We want to thank everyone for their understanding as we work through these changes, and we hope the Exmoor community and our visitors can collaborate positively with us to find the best way forward. 

“We plan to expand our volunteer programme and our Caremoor visitor giving scheme to make it as easy as possible for people to contribute and get involved. Please get in touch if you think you can help or have any suggestions, comments or questions relating to this”.