Beautiful Lake District town on brink of tourist tax | UK | News

The Beatrix Potter said that he could not harm the lake area even “Hitler”, which is the permanent beauty of his rolled hills and natural landscapes. But now the locals are afraid that popular national parks are under a serious threat of a tourist army that causes irreparable damage – unless they slapped on charges of a controversial visitor.

Daytrippers and Holidaymakers are larger than 40,000 inhabitants of the Lake region, and an area of ​​18 million visitors landing on an area of ​​18 million visitors a year-venetian, Paris and Barcelona. With the landscape areas dominated by rural hills and mountains for Miles, with the landscape areas dominated, the majority enters small towns such as bowness-on-Windermere to enjoy the breathtaking landscapes. For the Mayor of Windermere and Bowness Christine Hallatsch, this is “both a blessing and curse” – the economic increase of tourism -tempted tourism by garbage crowns, bully chicken and deer parties and traffic chaos.

“There is not enough park to host all people who want to visit with a sunny weekend car, or he explains.

“When they find the parking lots full, they do not go home, they only park illegally, probably prevent access to homes and emergency vehicles.”

Increased number of deer and chicken party caused “a significant increase in antisocial behavior linked to drugs and alcohol”. Last year, the problem became so worse that the municipal council had to employ their own street support officers.

At the same time, the police planned to turn a Bownless guest house into a bar and accused the increase in licensed buildings for “antisocial behavior reports and a significant increase in violent crime”.

The number of public order crimes, which is annually discussed in Bowness, rose from 268 to 334 in just two years.

However, Michael Hill, General Manager of Lake District’s friends, says “absolutely irresponsible behaviors” is the “very much scale of visits ıyla rather than the minority of the poor tourists.

In the intense summer season, he says, “You are more likely to spend hours in traffic congestion than to get it quickly in that area,” he says.

Millions of liters of untreated sewage have been family thrown into the iconic lake Windermere in the last few years and caused harmful blue-green algae to bloom.

“The problem is that the wastewater infrastructure is designed for the built -in population of that area, Mr. Mr. Hill explains.

“At this time of the year, the number of people emitting waste water in this basin is much more than the number of inhabitants.”

According to the BBC investigation, a single pumping station between 2020-23 lake 140 million liters of raw sewerage. Another analysis reported that last year was 140 days when sewage was illegally spilled.

However, Mr. Hill says: “Although this is disgusting, it is not the untreated sewage that causes the problem.

“Even the treated sewage has high levels of phosphate and other chemicals, which leads to problems in the lake.”

Mr. Hill warns that “communities are carved from the locals”.

“The housing is under great pressure for local residents because it is very attractive to buy holiday homes and second houses and put them in Airbnb in places like bowness.”

“This makes it almost impossible for someone to work locally here to buy a house,” he says, some businesses are forced to close for part of the year because they are struggling to find workers.

“We need to come here and enjoy as much as possible, but it needs to be done to respect the region and the scenery, or he adds.

Mr Hill believes that a small visitor accusation in Edinburgh, Barcelona and Venice will help lakes cope with visitor numbers and invest in the infrastructure ”.

He says that even a few -pound fee, such as Park Rangers, can create a big money to finance improvements and increase bus services to help reduce car traffic.

Not everyone supports a tourism tax. Steve Bavin, a member of a Bowness Regional Assembly, supports the pressure on bad behaviors, but says: “There are other things that should be placed first for such a thing to work well.

“Also, I don’t want to exclude people. Currently, life is expensive. If you’re going to behave yourself and go for a nice walk somewhere, I don’t want to charge you and make it impossible to meet you. This is not very fair.”

He would also postpone some visitors. Warren Butterworth, 54, from Blackpool, comes to Bowness once a year in summer. He thinks that a tourism tax will “ruin things and stop people from going.”

However, Mr. Hill says: “If you put it at a low level and make it clear that it helps people to renew and protect their favorite space and make it a better visitor experience for them, they will do more than accepting – they will welcome.”

Gill Haight, General Manager of Cumbria Tourism, says that difficulty is consistency in tourist habits – packaged on hot summer days like Bowness, but was abandoned in cooler, rainy weather.

He points out that the total number of visits made to Kingdom decreased by 18% to pre -pandemic levels due to seasonal fluctuations. Journeys along Lake Windermere have dropped 20% since Covid.

“I think Bowness, Bowness, all the places where people come to visit, are the most accessible and popular for people, or he says.

“We know that there are important days to get a really high amount of people a year.”

Cumbria tourism works with the police, councils and others to reduce possible problems with “Key Compression Days”.

“I think the businesses themselves are incredibly responsible, or he says. “They have their own staff and safety to support noise and the like.

Biri One of the businesses I talked about has spent 1 million shyness to build accommodation for staff in the last two years. These staff later settled in these communities.

“This is a really popular place. There will always be a place where people want to reach every part and there is a responsibility on all of us to work together to make people spend a bright time, but they do it in a way that means everyone’s benefits.”

Mr. Hill believes that the problems are a feature of “very different visitors experiences” in the lake area.

“You may be in distant high decreases that enjoy a long -distance walk, and you may not be able to see any other mood in some times of the year, or he explains.

“But at this time of the year, you come to Jowl with thousands of people who eat ice cream, go to Pub and visit the Beatrix Potter Museum.

“Bowness is just at one end of this range.”

On a sunny day, go for a walk around the bowness and it doesn’t take long to see the problems defined by Mr. Hill and others.

While traveling from Barrow-in-Furness on Tuesday morning, I had another option to come with a car because a bus would take an hour and a half.

When I arrived, most of the parking lots were full and I had a few minutes of driving to find a space. I was lucky to find a place in Glebe Road, but I had to spend a 10 -minute ranking on the ticket machine.

Talk to holidaymakers and clearly valued Bowness as one of the leading touristic places of England.

76 -year -old Alan Whittingham, who visited Altrincham, said, “We are just a good place and we are very lucky.

“I went to many places around the world and there are not many things that are equal to it. It shows that you cannot defeat the country.”

57-year-old Kevin Erser from Bristol said, “Really beautiful and old-fashioned but with many shops and all Mod-Cons.” He said.

I talked to Jassem Dala, a 47 -year -old Jassem Dala to enjoy Bowness instead of big cities like London or Manchester from Saudi Arabia.

But everyone I hit was a tourist. He felt like discovering a resident walking in the town, trying to find a needle in a straw.

Regardless of their views on tourist accusations, it is difficult to agree with the basic principle behind the idea – what Mr. Hill describes as “regenerative tourism ..

“As a visitor, you want to know that as a visitor will potentially benefit from your visit, and at least you do not harm you by going there.”

Tourism is a sharp sword that brings tremendous economic benefits to Bowness as well as social difficulties.

Mrs. Hallatsch says: uz We know that the increase of our population by visitors is something that enables us to have great facilities such as theater, cinema, magnificent restaurants and comfortable pubs in our town. ”

Mrs Haight adds that the lakes should really, really, really, not only sunny days, but also in different times throughout the year, a strong tourism and people should come ”.

The simple message for the visitors seems to welcome you to the bowness, but at least leave them as you’ve found them – so the residents of Cumbrian are not allowed to clean up the confusion.