Countryside Agency
The Countryside Agency was a English government body from 1999 to 2006. It was created by joining the Countryside Commission and the Rural Development Commission. It had about 600 staff and a budget of around £100 million a year from Defra. It did not own land; it gave advice and funded schemes to protect the countryside, support rural economies, and make rural areas easier to enjoy. It worked with local councils, landowners and other public bodies.
Its main tasks included designating and protecting national parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, setting heritage coast rules, and creating long-distance trails for walkers and riders. In 2003 it began creating England’s South Downs National Park. In 2004 it helped update The Countryside Code with Wales. It also ran the Millennium Greens project, completing 245 of 250 greens by around 2000.
In 2006, after a government review, the Countryside Agency was dissolved. Its environmental work mostly joined Natural England (along with English Nature and parts of the Rural Development Service). The socio-economic work of the Rural Development Commission had already moved to Regional Development Agencies in 1999, and later to Local Enterprise Partnerships in 2012. The remaining policy and research functions became the Commission for Rural Communities, which was abolished in 2013.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 14:27 (CET).