I COMMENT upon the desecration of Lakeland which has occurred during my lifetime of 85 years, as a resident of planet earth.

In the first instance, the Lake District National Park is a misnomer.

Most of the National Park is part of a working county and in private ownership in the forms of farmland, which is an essential contributor to the national economy and should be respected and treated as such.

This has been frustrated on numerous occasions through officious administrators in statutory offices.

The only good thing to come from the Coronavirus lockdown has been the modicum of respite given to the area from the influx of visitors, until this present point in time when part of the lockdown was revoked.

The hoards of visitors to the area once again are becoming a bane on the indigenous population, due to the lack of respect for its population and limited road use.

Over a period of one week, many of Lakeland’s sensitive areas were deluged with visitors and left with enormous amounts of litter, which the local communities had to deal with, due to a serious lack of capacity and respect for the area and its residents.

Over a short period in time, during the lockdown, Lakeland returned to the normality it once enjoyed in the late 1940s and 1950s when Lakeland was in its prime and not at the present time when the area is almost dysfunctional through the idiocy of some visitors to the area.

During the Coronavirus lockdown there was an air of tranquility when the area’s residents and farmers could traverse its narrow roads and byways without any impediment.

And all statutory authorities should take note that this ceased when part of the lockdown was revoked and take action to ensure it does not happen again.

The many farms during the lockdown throughout Lakeland were not subject to visitors marauding and sheep worrying with dogs let off their leash on sheep pastures on the fell sides.

Ground-nesting birds were not disturbed to the extent they were and many mammals came out of their cover and could be seen on open areas of ground.

During the lockdown, many areas of indigenous flora were protected from foot traffic and destructive fires were not lit in sensitive areas.

Since the late 1940s and 1950s when I ranged Lakeland’s mountains and valleys, Lakeland has become a dumping ground for almost every form of litter mentionable.

Visitors have carte blanche to roam over most of Lakeland’s treasures with most of its mammal and avian populations being subjected to critical levels.

To further compound this current situation many of Lakeland’s inland waters are contaminated with high concentrations of phosphates, nitrates and other chelates through being discharged into sensitive waters from sewage works outfalls, resulting in hydro-biological changes to the detriment of the whole of Lakeland. Due to visitors.

Once locked into the beds of many Lakeland’s inland waters, nutrients are there for many years unless they are subject to a flow of self-cleansing velocity which is between 2.2 and 2.8 feet per second of its metric equivalent.

Surface nutrients cause the growth of algae and the demise of the rare Vendace in Bassenthwaite Lake through neglect.

Prior to the Coronavirus lockdown Lakeland did not have the sustainable infrastructure to accommodate the tourist influx at that point in time and when the present lockdown is repeated, the projected influx of visitors will devastate the whole of Cumbria and its indigenous population.

The supply of potable water will also come at a premium during long dry weather periods.

In conclusion, how can our hard-pressed police force (Cumbria Constabulary) deal with the projected influx of visitors when it is already under a great deal of pressure at this point in time due to other duties?

Can our county afford such events happening?

J G Straughton

Cumbria resident for 85 years

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