A Lake District holiday park has won permission to install a new jetty and increase its size to help allow Windermere Lake Cruises to call there.

The cruising company will be able to pick up and drop off passengers from a new stop at the five-star Hill of Oaks caravan and lodge park at Tower Wood.

The project was hailed by councillors as a new way of reducing the dependency of tourists using their cars to get around the 10.5-mile long water.

Set on the eastern shore of Windermere, the 84-acre site features static and touring caravans, lodges, self-catering apartments, and pods.

Owners, the family-owned Lake District Estates Company Ltd, had to apply to South Lakeland District Council (SLDC) to make an ‘encroachment’ onto the bed of Windermere, which is owned by SLDC.

It will involve an existing jetty being demolished and replaced with a new, larger timber jetty. Works are expected to start in September and to take around eight weeks.

A report from agents representing the applicants said: “Although the piers are not in danger of imminent collapse, they are reaching the end of their working lives of around 20 years.”

Planning permission has already been granted by the Lake District National Park Authority, but came before a meeting of the SLDC’s Lake Administration Committee.

Frankie Flanningan, principal lake and parking services officer for SLDC, said the ‘impact’ of the extension would require the relocation of three swinging moorings to the south of Blakeholme, one of Windermere’s 18 islands.

The Lake District Estates Company would pick up the tab for the job of moving the moorings, he said.

The extension would be a traditional wooden jetty and Mr Flanningan said he had ‘absolutely no issues with it’ as all the necessary consents for the works were in place.

Cllr Jennifer Borer, a Windermere Town Council representative on the Lake Administration Committee, welcomed the application.

She said: “This is part and parcel of the attempts by everybody to move people around the area without their cars, so therefore it creates a more hop on, hop off service around the lake, so from my point of view, I would support it.”

The application was unanimously agreed.