Visitor resting at the top of Stanage Edge in the Peak District

Looking After

How we work to look after the National Park, conservation, ranger services, biodiversity and policies.

The work of the Authority
How we make decisions, the role of Members and staff.
Current consultations
We want your opinions on these consultations
Ranger service
What our rangers and volunteers do around the National Park.
Plans & policies
Corporate plans and policies

John Herbert

I am the chair of Sheldon Parish Meeting.

I chair the authority's planning committee and I am the member representative for Mineral Extraction issues.

Contact me

If you want to contact me about the work of the Peak District National Park Authority you can do so in the following ways:

Telephone: 01629 814229

Email: john.herbert@peakdistrict.gov.uk

Address: Woodbine Farm, Sheldon, Bakewell, Derbyshire DE45 1QS

About Me

I am a retired Professor of Journalism who previously worked for the BBC. I own a small acreage and count myself as an honorary Peak District farming volunteer!

I have lived in the small farming community of Sheldon for 26 years and have been the Chair of Sheldon Parish Meeting since 2001. I have a passionate interest in planning and enforcement matters, as Chair of both Sheldon Parish Meeting and the Authority’s Planning Committee. As a local resident, I have witnessed how planning matters affect local people.

People and communities issues are of special interest to all parish members, and have been my overriding concern over the years.

I am also Chair of the Derbyshire Dales/High Peak Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) which promotes the importance and sustainability of small businesses in the rural economy of the National Park.

I have been re-elected by the parish councils to be a Peak District National Park Authority member for the third time and so will serve on the authority until 2015.

What the national park means to me

We live in an area of indescribable natural beauty with a landscape that has been moulded over the centuries by those who live here.

The issues which most affect local people are to do with the way the Authority carries out its primary duties of planning and enforcement. As a parish member I try my hardest to provide a bridge and an interactive link between national park communities and the Authority, particularly as the Authority is trying to be more responsive, in visible terms, to the concerns, worries and needs of the local communities.

As a parish member I not only have a responsibility for the local communities (my main responsibility) but also to the wider regional relationship with surrounding local authorities and communities. These councils, and their councillors, are of great importance, providing us with hugely important inroads into influencing the way these councils see the National Park, its inhabitants and heritage.

I also have a responsibility to the fact that this is a National Park, and we are all its guardians for the nation. I believe that by safeguarding our local communities, the people who live and work here, and importantly our farmers - who over the centuries have made the National Park’s landscape what it is today - we preserve it for the nation. So the national priorities must also be our local priorities, and our local priorities must turn into national priorities.

I believe in making myself available to all who need my help or advice from any local community within the National Park.

All around where I live, I see the evidence of countless examples of cultural heritage, that involves local customs, local history and industrial heritage, all of which I feel I have a duty to help preserve and spread the word. Our own village feels very strongly about this, with its own very vibrant local history group.

The biodiversity of the national park should also be cherished, and preserved, and I believe that anything we, as local residents, can do to help achieve this is to be welcomed.

Because of my experience in communications and my former role as the chair of the Peak District Interpretation Partnership, the importance of spreading the word about the National Park, and understanding the National Park, is something I try hard to pursue.

As a resident of a small village, I see the effects of tourism, both good and bad. Recreation is of course a vital function of the National Park, and my wife and I are keen walkers in our beautiful natural landscape. At the same time I try to do something as a member about some of the more negative passive forms of recreation that can cause harm to our landscape and surroundings, and destroy the tranquillity for which the National Park is so famous.