Article in The Times today
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/whinlatter-cable-car-plan-rocks-the-lake-district-zgmwhc6mxProbably being naughty but I've copied and pasted the wording below.
Whinlatter cable car plan rocks the Lake DistrictCampaigners claim that a cable car meant to improve access for visitors would spoil views from Latrigg, overlooking Keswick in the Lake District
Conservationists in the Lake District are preparing to fight plans for a ski lift-style cable car only months after defeating proposals to build a zip wire.The Lake District National Park Authority argues that a cable car would allow more visitors to access a beauty spot near Keswick without clogging nearby roads with more cars.
The cable car plan is part of the authority’s “vision” for the national park over the next 15 years but is strongly opposed by Friends of the Lake District, which warns of “wholly inappropriate aerial infrastructure . . . visible from iconic viewpoints such as Latrigg and Dodd Fell”.
Annual tourist numbers in the Lake District have risen from 15.8 million in 2009 to 19.2 million last year. Friends of the Lake District says that the cable car would attract even more visitors, ruining the national park’s tranquillity and threatening its status as a World Heritage Site.
The authority’s draft local plan refers to “significant opportunities for intensification” of an existing visitor centre at Whinlatter Forest, which is popular with walkers and mountain bikers. It notes that the extra visitors could have an impact on Braithwaite village and to avoid this a “gondola” could be built from the A66 to the visitor centre.
Visitors would be able to park in Keswick, four miles away, possibly reaching the cable car via a shuttle bus.The document adds that the new “mountain centre” might include viewing stations, a dark-skies observatory, cycle tracks, and leisure accommodation.
Douglas Chalmers, chief executive of Friends of the Lake District, said: “There has been concern for some time that the Lake District National Park is becoming too commercialised. This feeling has increased in recent months.
Campaigners in Grizedale say the government’s plan to sell off Forestry Commission land will threaten the environment and economy
The landscape and the experiences [that the Lake District] provides are the attraction, and many tourism businesses benefit directly from this. It is what brings millions of visitors and supports tens of thousands of jobs, and those numbers continue to increase. Artificial attractions will not benefit, but actually will threaten our environment, our economy and our local communities.
“The government has recently launched a review of National Parks to ensure designated landscapes are fit for the future. They were set up for the wellbeing of the nation and that need may be even greater now.”
Steve Ratcliffe, director of sustainable development for the Lake District National Park, said it was working on the plans for Whinlatter with the Forestry Commission, which owns the land. He said a feasibility study was being conducted “to assess the potential impacts and benefits for the environment, communities and the economy”.
He added that the development “will need to be successfully assimilated into the forest landscape”.
The authority will publish a revised version of the 15-year plan next year and adopt it in 2020. Mr Ratcliffe said it was “critical for that plan to be forward-thinking”. He added: “I am particularly excited about alternative sustainable transport modes being put forward as part of the visitor experience.”
Friends of the Lake District said the cable car was “a tourist attraction in its own right rather than a radical traffic solution”.