I WENT to enjoy a walk up Great Gable at the weekend and was horrified to find that it looks like a fence or posts are being installed at the side of the road.

Large stone boulders have already been placed in many places to prevent parking – if any remaining places to park are blocked off how do we access the key fells of the Lake District?

I’m sure most of the senior managers at the national park are convinced this is the best way forward – keep encouraging people to visit the Lakes with promotional media content then ensure any parking is minimised or removed. Have these people any idea it’s 2021, not 1954? And no! We don’t want to park in Keswick and catch a bus like Wainwright did.

When areas of the Lakes get busy the answer isn’t to reduce the facilities to drive them away.

The people who are in charge of the Lake District need to plan for the next 50 years, not just for now. Please understand and accept that people want to visit these fells, they want to climb them and walk back to their cars with a smile of satisfaction on their faces. We have all been locked up for months and we want to get out. The last thing we want to worry about is were we can park and will our car be damaged when we get back to it.

People only park in stupid places when they have no other choice.

Ask the people who visit the fells on a regular basis. All they want is a safe place to park, and if they have to pay let it be a token payment, not £8 or £9 per day like the National Trust.

It’s time for the Lake District National Park to move with the times. If our local supermarket wants our business, they provide us with a free car park. In contrast, you guys want visitors to enjoy what the Lakes has to offer but are removing the facilities needed rather than increasing them.

Surely a properly and considerately-built car park would look far better than ratty timber posts and stone boulders by the side of the road?

I live in Cumbria and it’s sad to see such short-sighted planning.

Petrol and diesel cars may be on the way out but in no time there will be millions of electric cars to replace them. What is the National Park planning to service these?

Let’s not drive people away by looking backwards.

NIGEL KYNASTON

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