Following your article on the pressures created by visitor numbers in national parks (Tourists’ cars may be banned from most popular parts of Lake District, 14 November), I would also question the common assumption that tourism makes local communities richer. It doesn’t. Tourism provides low-paid and largely unrewarding jobs to people who struggle to afford to live in honeypot areas, even when they have grown up there.
Tourism artificially inflates the cost of living and provides revenue for high-stakes investors, not for middle- or lower-income families. Neither does it help community cohesion, the provision of houses for those who can’t even afford one, let alone a second, or give space for other spheres of work.
The Lake District national park authority is labouring under a misapprehension. People will come to the area because this is a beautiful place and access should be for all. But it is a myth to think that visitors help communities and that we need the opportunity to serve them tea.
Dr Julie Carter
Portinscale, Cumbria
• Who could disagree with Richard Leafe, chief executive of the Lake District national park, that something needs to be done about the number of cars in the area? But allowing – at the same time – motoring on fell tracks in the heart of the Lakes is jarringly inconsistent. We know that it affects the environment and ruins the enjoyment of walkers and cyclists. Why does the national park condone this destructive hobby of a small minority?
Christine Muir
Little Langdale, Cumbria
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