EXECUTIVES of Dartmoor National Park Authority met West Devon and Torridge MP Geoffrey Cox recently to discuss various issues affecting the area.

Mr Cox visited Princetown to meet the chairman and chief executive of the DNPA to highlight his concerns about Dartmoor National Park.

He raised the need for dialogue and closer engagement with local communities in West Devon and was briefed on the plans and progress the DNPA had made in this regard.

He also raised the current under-stocking of livestock on the moor. Mr Cox suggested he and the authority might work together in looking at ways of tackling the underlying causes of this growing problem.

He said: 'It is vital that the moor should remain a place for farmers and farming people who look after the land to maintain appropriate levels of stock and to keep the landscape as we know it today.

'Defra's inability to see that the current system of incentives and payments are in danger of threatening this legacy is another reason to see the back of this failed and discredited ministry.

'Hill farming is vital to the well being of Dartmoor, but while it is no longer a problem to keep stock on the moor, numbers will decline.'