How is the Lake district impacted by tourism?

Examples of tourist externalities impact are living litter, flying camping by rivers, rubbish, and impact on transportation. The lake district has 38.000 population and over 18million visit the destination yearly. According to Mr. Jeremy, 91% visitors visit the national park with their own vehicle and 72% of them use their own vehicle to get around which causes roads blockages, damages to road verges, wrong parking blocking emergency services.

Is tourism good or bad for the lake district and what actions are undertaking to resolve tourism negative impact on the lake district?

General positive impact as usual is tourism is revenue generator and provide more jobs. But what makes it bad for the lake district its kind, thus for example when visitors do not help local people to achieve regenerative tourism at the district. However, to achieve regenerative tourism local authorities have undertaken some actions to preserve the beauty of the landscape. Examples of these actions are:

·       Visiting levies: this is in a form of tax to mitigate the impact of negative tourism impact at the district.

·        Council Tax: this has been doubled for those with second homes at the district. According to Mr. Jeremy, more than 20% of homes become empty in most time of the year which is driving higher housing prices for local people to acquire property. In that regard, this is also affecting GP services for example.

How can success be measured from authorities’ solutions?

These solutions are not just to stop the flow of tourists at the lake district; however, these solutions will enable authorities to mitigate to the risk and negative factors of tourism at the district. For example, improving public transport services and infrastructure like roads will derive from transportations levies. Other levies from hotels, Airbnb and second home tax could also help to build more new homes for local people.

How can you the tourist help the lake district?

Support organisations like friends of the lake district concerning their campaign about visiting charge. Local people can also do likewise to raise concerns with their local MPs about current model of tourism in place.

Can technology be a good tool to resolve some of the issues at the lake district?

Yes, for example vehicle number recognition technologies to monitor vehicles can be a good tool for decision making.

 Stanford, D. (2024) 'Who Pays the Lake District Report. Available

at: https://www.friendsofthelakedistrict.org.uk/Handlers/Download.ashx?IDMF=c7173bad-8b31-41d0-8d53-8190bd8d3045