Herewith, the statistical information we were unable to provide at the inquiry in response to a question from Christine Butler concerning:

(a)  how much money has the Authority spent on field boundary repairs/restoration in 1997-98?

(b)  and how much over, say, the last 20 years?

  You will note that I have not been able to supply statistics as far back as 20 years; not because we do not have the information but because the Authority's grant schemes have only been operating for the last 10 years as far as field boundary repair work is concerned. (Prior to 1989, every farmer had access to the Farm and Conservation Grant Scheme, run by MAFF, which offered variable rates of grant, at different times, for field boundary repairs.

  If you require further explanation of the statistics, or even further information, please contact me.

Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority Grants offered towards the conservation of drystone walling through The Barns and Walls Conservation Scheme
Year	Total number of grants awarded	Total length of walling repaired	Value of grants (80 per cent)	Percentage of annual budget
1989-92	24	3,278m2	£27,400	N/A
1992-93	9	1,416m2	£11,438	11.4
1993-94	6	586m2	£5,018	5
1994-95	11	1,312m2	£11,546	11.5
1995-96	14	1,698m2	£15,826	12
1996-97	12	2,109m2	£19,436	16
1997-98	9	1,382m2	£14,640	11.5
	85 grants	11,771m2	£105,304
Notes: 1. The Barns and Wall Conservation Scheme (B&WCS) is a conservation area partnership scheme operated by the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority (YDNPA) and jointly funded with English Heritage (EH). The scheme started in 1989-90. 2. Figures for years up to April 1992 not available as annual breakdown. 3. Up until end of 1994-95, the scheme was confined to Swaledale and Arkengarthdale. From 1995-96 onwards, the scheme was extended to include Littondale. 4. The expenditure on grants is split 50:50 between YDNPA and EH. 5. Final column shows figure as percentage of annual budget for the B&WCS spent on walling. The balance was spent on repairs to traditional field barns. 6. The total of 11,771m2 refers to metres square and is equivalent to about 7.5kms of walling (assuming average wall height = 1.6m).

Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority Grants offered for conservation of drystone walls and hedgerows through The Farm Conservation Scheme
Year	Length of wall repaired	Value of grant	Length of hedge restored	Value of grant	Total grant
1996-97	2,979m	£34,893	651m	£2,911	£37,804
1997-98	3,820m	£48,304	848m	£4,280	£52,584
	6,799m	£83,197	1,499m	£8,191	£90,388
Notes: 1. The Farm Conservation Scheme is a pilot whole farm scheme operated and funded by the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority in Kingsdale and Chapel-le-Dale. Agreements run for a period of five years. 2. Grants for field boundaries are offered at a standard rate for running repairs/maintenance and a grant of 80 per cent of the actual cost of full restoration (For the purposes of this return the figures for repair and restoration have been aggregated).

Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority Grants offered towards the conservation of drystone walling through The Malham Cove Walling Scheme
Year	Value of grant (£)
1990-91	5,300
1991-92	1,894
1992-93	844
1993-94	*11,128
1994-95	2,162
1995-96	4,686
1996-97	1,220
1997-98	431
Total	£27,665
Notes: 1. The Malham Cove Walling Scheme offers variable grants (75 per cent for external boundary walls, 100 per cent for internal boundaries) to farmers to assist with the costs of repairing walls of high landscape value below Malham Cove. 2. Figures cannot be extracted easily to provide lengths of wall repaired due to variable grant rates applied. 3. Latest grant claims indicate that walling repairs cost £14.60/running metre. * includes cost of grant for rebuilding wall alongside beck below the Cove.

Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust Grants offered for conservation of drystone walling by The Trust through its Millennium Project
Year	Length of wall repaired	Value of grant
1997-98	7,000m	£76,897
Notes: 1. The YDMT is the Authority's independently funded and operated sister charity. 2. The Millennium Project (50 per cent funded by the Millennium Commission) runs for four years from 1997-98 to 2000-01 with specific targets to be met each year. 3. The Trust aims to fund restoration of 28kms of walls important in the landscape over that period.