DALES guardians will need to find at least £200,000 extra in their budget to pay for new "right to roam" rules.

The Yorkshire Dales National Park will need to employ more rangers following the Countryside and Rights of Way Act, which became law on Tuesday.

The rules give new rights of access on foot to mountain, moor, down and registered common land.

It also calls for the setting up of local access forum, which will have responsibility for overseeing such issues as mapping and signing.

Steve Macare, YDNP chairman, said: "The authority believes that for the act to succeed, Government will need to make available additional money to fund more rangers on the ground and the infrastructure that will be required."

There was still a lot of preparatory work to undertake, involving setting up the access forums.

"When the maps are drawn up, there will be islands of open access on moorland which will be surrounded by farmland with no rights of way.

"Those rights of way will have to be created by arrangement with landowners," he added.

YDNP officers do not expect to have the access routes established until about 2005.