REFLECTIONS

Growing up in West Cumbria, Wasdale was among the more accessible valleys, Wastwater and the surrounding hills a familiar weekend haunt. It was a long time ago but even then, on a good day it always seemed busy - the lure of The Pike, Great Gable and others drawing folks from far afield. I’m glad we could not foresee what was coming.

I recall speaking with a couple near Applecross in Scotland one summer. They had once lived in Wasdale, but finding the area becoming too busy for their liking, had moved north for the space afforded in the Highlands. That was more than three decades ago. I suppose it is relative, our perception of space, of what appears normal, and what feels out of place among the hills.

And yet it seems to me that things have surely gone too far now. Has the Lake District, it’s valleys and hills, become nothing more than a commodity? An asset to be sold by those who use its image and the sense of what it might offer for financial gain? It is easy to point the finger, to lay blame, yet we have all played our part. A World Heritage Site inscription has followed National Park status, while the Park’s vision, an ‘inspirational example of sustainable development’ seems riddled with murky holes. In fact, the National Parks generally have failed the fragile landscapes of England, Wales and more recently Scotland. Rather than mitigating the flood of pressures from increased tourism, they promote themselves tirelessly. And if World Heritage Site status is thought of unquestionably as a good thing, why then has St Kilda subsequently been subject to the expansion of a radar station, never mind an MoD base?

From Scafell I had dropped to Burnmoor Tarn, before running over The Screes and down to the lake, slowing to a walk in the last miles back to the car. I sat beneath a small stand of pines, beneath our ‘highest mountain and deepest lake’, reflecting on another meaningless slogan projected to draw yet more people, and their money. It is perhaps too late to protect any wilderness in The Lakes, something which barely exists in the UK in any case though it is this that inspired that National Parks’ creation. But people inevitably dilute what remains of any sense of what is wild. And taken to its logical conclusion, it seems this ‘development’ aligned with such a vision, will leave precious few places to ‘simply breathe in, enjoy the peace and be inspired’. Frankly, how any of this is ‘sustainable’, is beyond me.