THE vital report advising Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett whether or not to turn the New Forest into a National Park is likely to arrive on her desk in October or November.

When the public inquiry into Park status for the Forest came to an end yesterday after exactly 60 days, the man who conducted it said: "I can't say when the report will be published because that is not in my control."

It would, he said, be published by the Secretary of State (Mrs Beckett) and he anticipated that he would be completing it by the late autumn.

He thanked the administrators Bob Wiggins, Barbara Bay and Louise Kavanagh for their work behind the scenes and the officers of the Countryside Agency, led by counsel Robert Griffiths QC, for the thorough way they had put the case and dealt with questions.

Mr Griffiths had represented the Environment Agency at the Dibden Bay public inquiry from November 2001 until the autumn last year when there was an overlap between that and the National Park inquiry.

The legal marathon man said: "We always have mixed feelings at the end of an inquiry - glad we've got through it, but sad to say goodbye to all the people we have got to know."

Although 42 of the 50 public seats were empty for the inquiry's final session at the Lyndhurst Park Hotel, the hearing had a lively finale. Its last witnesses, farming couple Richard and Avril Lowndes from the Ringwood area, were involved in exchanges with the Countryside Agency over their claims that National Park status was not needed and would inflict over-stringent controls on planning and recreation