Plan to preserve Chiltern hills

Visitors to the Chilterns spend an estimated £450m locally each year

The natural beauty of the Chiltern hills is threatened by traffic noise, climate change and urban development, a conservation plan warns.

The Chilterns Conservation Board (CCB)has produced the five-year scheme to help protect the area.

The Chilterns were made an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in 1965 and attract tens of thousands of visitors each year.

The CCB said councils, planners and developers should refer to its plan.

Claire Forest, from the CCB, said: "It is about protecting the things that make this area special."

The tranquillity you can find here is affected by things like road noise and noise from aircraft Claire Forest Chilterns Conservation Board

The Chiltern hills are made up of large, linked areas of open chalk down-land.

They stretch from Goring in Oxfordshire, through Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire, to Hitchin in Hertfordshire.

The AONB is intended to protect the steep chalk escarpments, grassland, chalk-bedded rivers, ancient beech woodland and brick-and-flint villages.

The management plan highlights threats from noise, fly-tipping, a decline in livestock and dairy farming, a fall in demand for local timber and continuing development.

Ms Forest said: "There is going to be a lot of growth in the towns around the edge of the AONB.

"Undoubtedly, it will have an impact on this countryside, with more people wanting to come and enjoy it and travel through it.

Most visitors come to walk on the hills' 2,000km of footpaths

"We don't want to stop people enjoying it. But we have to try and cope with it, by for example trying to encourage people to leave their cars at home.

"Also, the tranquillity you can find here is affected by things like road noise and noise from aircraft.

"The management plan has got quite a lot in it of how to try and minimise those adverse impacts."

The plan also includes a section on climate change for the first time.