PLANS to "modernise" camping and caravan sites could spoil the New Forest, an MP has warned.

Tory MP Desmond Swayne fears that a project by the Forestry Commission to boost income from tourism could lead to the national park becoming the site of a mammoth holiday village like Center Parcs.

Mr Swayne, who represents New Forest West, said that camp sites already filled 357 acres of the Forest, not including the areas around the camp sites which were "inevitably affected and disrupted by their existence".

The MP cited a press release from Forest Holidays, a new venture between the commission and the Camping and Caravanning Club, launched in May, which boasted that it opened the door for "even more camping and cabin sites on Forestry Commission land".

Speaking in the House of Commons, he said: "This has been a long-running sore a battle between the Forestry Commission, which obviously wants to increase the services and the pitches available in those camp sites in order to generate more revenue, and the Verderers of the New Forest, who represent the Commoners and the rights of grazing."

Verderers had already voiced their opposition to additional facilities at the Hollands Wood and Roundhill camp sites.

Mr Swayne, commenting on the likely impact of plans to "modernise" recreational facilities in the New Forest, said: "It means more pitches, with electric hook-ups. Does it mean more roads and paths?

"Does it mean, for example, security lighting, entertainment opportunities, shops, playgrounds, perhaps a swimming pool, perhaps even a swimmers' sub-tropical paradise, as exists at Center Parcs?

"Remember that we speak of the New Forest, a world heritage site, our smallest national park, where the camp sites are never far from the most sensitive parts of the Forest core."

Mr Swayne asked the government to "reaffirm" the minister's mandate, under which the Forestry Commission is required to place "conservation of the natural and cultural heritage" as the principal objective of its management of the New Forest.

Ben Bradshaw, a minister at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, dismissed reports that the mandate was being abandoned as "completely unfounded".

He said he had been assured by his officials that the character of the camp sites would be "unaffected" by the Forest Holidays venture.

A spokesman for the Forestry Commission said that Forest Holidays planned to build a new cabin site "at a location yet to be decided" and would also study the potential for opening new camping and caravan sites on Forestry Commission land.