BOWDEN Down could soon become a wasteland, according to Brentor Commoners' secretary Alan Davey.
Secretary of State for the Environment John Prescott last week turned down an application for the commoners to retain a fence built illegally around Bowden Down more than a decade ago.
The commoners also failed in a bid for a Countryside Stewardship grant to clear scrub and install cattle grids so the area can be grazed — an activity considered important in maintaining the landscape.
'Without the fence or the cattle grids we won't be able to keep stock on the down, and without the stock, the land will deteriorate into scrub and brambles — it will become a wasteland,' said Mr Davey.
'The people who enjoy it at the moment will be unable to use it before too long, and all for the sake of the few people who don't like the look of a fence.'
He continued: 'People see the countryside and think it stays that way on its own — it doesn't, it needs maintaining, and grazing is the only feasible way to maintain it.'
Mr Davey said they had tried every way they could think of to get funding for the grids and he felt the cost of them was the reason their bid for a Stewardship grant failed.
'The future is quite bleak for the down,' he said.
For now, the fence will have to stay where it is, said Mr Davey.
'The stock has been killed as being contiguous with a foot and mouth-infected area and it wouldn't be right to take it down at the moment,' he said.
The commoners were ordered last June to remove an earth bank on Liddaton Down. It was built at the same time as the fence, following an invasion by 'new age travellers', but the decision on the fence was deferred pending the Countryside Stewardship application.
The bank is still in place, its removal thwarted first by nesting birds and then by the foot and mouth outbreak. Mr Davey said it would be bulldozed as soon as they got the go-ahead from MAFF.
In his judgment on the fence last week, the secretary of state said although the public still had access to the land, the fencing created a barrier which gave the appearance of a private paddock from which the public was excluded.
He said there were other means of dealing with people illegally occupying such a site and stock could be retained without fencing by using cattle grids, although Mr Davey said he was aware they could not afford them and that the Stewardship application had failed.
Kate Ashbrook, general secretary of the Open Spaces Society, said: 'We opposed the fencing of the down and we are delighted the secretary of state has recognised the important nature of the common — it's openness.'
Ms Ashbrook said she doubted the common would run to scrub.
'There are other ways to manage the land. They could put stock on it if they could shepherd it. It could also be cut by hand, and if people go there and enjoy it, they will keep it open anyway. But if it does look like happening, we will have to investigate other methods of management.'