The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has announced that funding to national park authorities is set to be cut by 5 per cent in 2010-11.

Plans to reduce the grants allocated to authorities will form part of the department's bid to save £162m during the year, which will contribute towards wider government efforts to save £6.2bn. New Forest National Park Authority announced that its funding will be cut to £4.2m - a real terms reduction of £200,000, while Peak District National Park Authority will net £8.29m - a decrease of £426,253.

Dartmoor National Park Authority has confirmed it has frozen all new job vacancies, training budgets, most non-statutory publications and suspended the Dartmoor Grant following Defra's announcement. New Forest chief executive Alison Barnes said: "We are obviously disappointed at the reduction in our grant but appreciate the difficulties being faced by all public bodies.

"We were anticipating cuts and have planned accordingly for this year to protect our delivery. However, it will be difficult to absorb any further reductions going forward without it having significant impact."