DARTMOOR activists have backed a national body’s warning that the national park is in danger of being ‘Disney-fied’.

A push for investment to bring money into national parks may lead to ‘crassly inappropriate’ sponsorships, warned Kate Ashbrook of the Open Spaces Society this week.

And the Dartmoor Preservation Association shared her fears – warning that increased competition could harm the income of volunteer groups.

‘The new partnership that has been set up by 15 national parks aims to bring money in from the commercial sector,’ said Kate Ashbrook, ‘but commercial people always want something out of it.

‘I’m concerned about sponsorships such as a chocolate bar insisting its name be added to a walking trail.

‘It would be tacky.’

The new National Parks Partnership is a company formed to attract private sector interest and set up deals such as that with an air freshener brand that now sells an ‘Exmoor Sea Spray’ fragrance.

It is designed to help fill the funding gap left by cuts in grants from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which have totalled 40 per cent on Dartmoor and Exmoor between 2011 and 2015.

But Ms Ashbrook said: ‘Businesses will want their profits from the scheme through Disneyfication and crassly inappropriate sponsorships.’

She said she was worried that the parks could be competing for money against groups like the Dartmoor Preservation Association.

Phil Hutt, director of the DPA, said: ‘I’ve worked in the private sector and I’ve never yet met a sponsor who doesn’t want something in return for his or her money.

‘Dartmoor doesn’t have big threats like reservoirs or mines, but there’s a lot of more insidious threats.

‘The answer is either adequate government funding or cutting the national parks’ cloth and focusing on the statutory duties of conservation and enhancing natural beauty, rather than some of the more ambitious things the Government is pushing us into such as attracting 10- million more visitors a year or 60,000 school experiences.’