With reference to any named rural area, examine the ways in which decision-makers have tried to resolve the conflicts associated with recreation and tourism.
Claire Hall RPS
I plan to examine the ways in which decision-makers have tried to resolve the conflicts associated with recreation and tourism in the Lake District. The Lake District is located in the northwest of England. It is the area's beauty that has led to the area's recent development. The famous Victorian poet, William Wordsworth, first acknowledged the beauty of the Lake District in his poems. This inspired other writers to visit the area. Slowly more and more people were attracted there and by the 19th century it was a very popular destination. The invention of motorcars made it easy to travel there and when the M6 was built in the 1960's it made the Lake District easily assessable. Before this, it was very lonely and had very few inhabitants. A lot of towns were created in the Lake District whilst Victoria was in power and most notably Windermere. In 1951 it became a National park and has been open to the public ever since. The area's status is so well spread that it attracts thousands of tourists throughout the year, especially in summer months. It is popular to walkers, climbers, boaters and most importantly people wanting to see the area's natural beauty. The Lake District is pretty much dependant on tourism and 42,000 jobs (1 in 6) are in tourism. The people who make decisions in the Lake District are the National Park authority, Friends of the Lake District, the National Trust and also the Cumbria tourist board. These groups are the organisations in which conflict occurs between.
One big area of conflict that has occurred in The Lake District is at Lake Windermere. Lake Windermere is the biggest lake in the UK. In the late 80's people began to use it for jet skiing. The National Parks said that it was too noisy and that it was scarring away the wildlife. Jet skiing needs fast boats to make it possible so the Park put a 10mph speed limit on the lake making jet skiing impossible. This affected the local businesses around the lake as there were less people visiting the lake. Fewer people were staying at the hotels, fewer people were being produce from the supermarkets and tourist shops and also fewer people were eating out. This means that these places were losing money that upset them.
Hayes garden world has caused conflict between the Friends of the Lake District, the National Park and the locals. Hayes Garden world started off as a small business and is now huge. It sells almost everything and over 1.5million people visit it every year. The friends of the Lake District say that its growth is out of scale with its surroundings. They don’t want it too grow anymore. It is inappropriate and is causing huge amounts of traffic congestion. They say that it should relocate as it does nothing for the Lake District. The National Parks have said that they do not want Hayes to shut down but overtime tourists won’t want to visit The Lake District for the original attraction (beautiful scenery) but for the artificial attractions. Hayes garden world knows what its doing but argue against them saying that it is good as they are bringing in more tourists which is what makes The Lake District. It is also spreading tourism out over a bigger area that means it should reduce congestion in other places.
