The Barbastelle bats need old dying trees with loose bark for their roosts and travel great distances along traditional flight lines to feed over damp meadows, which may be as much as 20 kilometres from the roost, in the Arun and Rother valleys. Local landowners are being encouraged to maintain and enhance continuous tree cover along these routes so that the bats can travel out on summer evenings, avoiding predation by sparrow hawks. There are substantial areas of open access land on commons across the area and extensive footpath and bridleway networks. The Serpent Trail long distance path between Petersfield and Haslemere is designed to pass through most of the heathlands in the area, passing from Haslemere west to Rake, West Sussex then east to Fittleworth, north of the River Rother, and then westwards again, south of the river, to Petersfield. The A272 road is the only major road across the Western Weald, and is nearly all single carriageway, while the A283 and A286 roads provide north–south access. Local roads tend to be narrow and winding. The inclusion of the western Weald in the South Downs National Park was a matter of great controversy. The report on the original public inquiry into the creation of the national park, which was published on 31 March 2006, concluded that its boundaries should be confined to the chalk downs, and thus exclude the wealden area of East Hampshire and the Chichester District of West Sussex. The inspector claimed new housing developments and intensive agriculture had degraded the Rother Valley so that it was unsuitable to be included. Seasonal use of plastic film on intensive vegetable crops along the fertile valley has a strong visual impact. This conclusion was disputed by a number of organisations, including Natural England, the Ramblers' Association, Sussex Wildlife Trust and the Campaign for National Parks who pointed to the diverse geology of existing national parks such as the Lake District and Peak District. The Campaign to Protect Rural England, which had been campaigning for a South Downs national park since 1929, vigorously supported inclusion of the western Weald. Its president, Bill Bryson, claimed that failure to include the area would be a "national tragedy". Critics of the decision countered that there had been only limited new housing, and the area had been an AONB for forty years, showing that it did not need the greater protection of being in a national park. After much public outcry and petitioning of government it was decided to re-open the public inquiry to take new submissions regarding the western Weald and a number of other disputed areas; the inquiry re-opened on 12 February 2008 and closed on 4 July 2008 after 27 sitting days.