Landscape charity Friends of the Lake District dedicates itself to protecting and enhancing the environment.
Founded 90 years ago in Keswick, it says it believes that the Lake District offers some of the most spectacular and precious landscapes in England and it takes action to protect and enhance the natural beauty of these landscapes for the benefit of local communities, visitors, wildlife and habitats.
You will have seen the charity’s name pop up on Cumbria Crack when it protests developments in the Lake District, including proposals to create a holiday park in South Cumbria and most recently this week the plans to develop Elterwater Quarry into a heritage tourism attraction.
It can be a controversial charity – and we have given it the opportunity to answer its critics. We posed four questions to Friends of the Lake District based around the criticism often levelled at it. Here are the charity’s answers.
What would you ask?
The Lake District has been a working environment for hundreds of years and its landscape has changed enormously over that time. We often see the charge that you want to pickle it in aspic – why does it now feel to a lot of people that no one is allowed to make a change to how the Lake District is or what is done within its boundaries?
Huge numbers of people feel quite the opposite. Planning rules and legislation are stronger in national parks.
That’s because the primary statutory purpose of their designation is conservation and enhancement of natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage.
There is also a secondary purpose of enabling the enjoyment and understanding of the national park’s special qualities by the public.
There’s then a piece of legalisation that requires these purposes to be ‘furthered’ and another called the Sandford Principle, that requires the first purpose to be given greater weight if there’s a conflict between the two.
So it’s not about stopping change, it’s about ensuring that change is done in a way that furthers these purposes and also respects the Sandford Principle. We think that the two purposes can work together, but that won’t happen if development proposals harm the very things that people come here to enjoy.
There has to be a mutually beneficial relationship between the landscape and the activities, rather than pitting one against the other. It’s about the way its done and the type of development or activity.
As an organisation, campaigning for the creation of a national park covering the Lake District was our reason for coming into being, so it’s natural we’d want to ensure that the policies and legislation set out at the national level to protect it are properly adhered to.
But it’s far from the truth to suggest we want to preserve it in aspic.
People often say we ‘object to everything’, but in fact we objected to only 1% of all applications made in the national park in 2023, and only 0.3% across the county.
We often make comments, rather than an objection, and often work with applicants and their agents to secure a more appropriate scheme. It’s just about the right type of development, in the right place, to ensure that the Lake District can continue to be a living, working community, but in a way that also ensures its special qualities are conserved and enhanced, for their own sake, but also so people can continue to enjoy them now and into the future.
It’s important to look beyond our planning work too. We pack quite a punch for a small charity. Whether that’s campaigning for better public transport, ensuring that new and replacement lighting is energy efficient and dark skies and wildlife friendly, enabling and supporting better public access to the outdoors, testing and demonstrating new techniques to make the landscape more resilient to climate change, or inspiring and training the next generation of dry-stone wallers and hedge-layers. Even a brief look at our website or social media shows that we are all about positive change.
Your organisation has been going for 90 years – to a lot of people it feels like the charity hasn’t moved on from 1934 and taken on board the economics of the area or the people within it; what is your response to those assumptions and how have you developed?
As an organisation, campaigning for the creation of a national park covering the Lake District was our reason for coming into being, but a huge amount has happened since then of course and we have responded to many changes and challenges along the way, with a changing focus that reflects the changing issues, changing national and local policy and legislation and the changing views and concerns of our members, supporters and the communities we work with.
A lot of the underlying concerns are essentially the same though and have endured over time – in particular, the concern that the things that people – visitors and residents – value about the Lake District will be lost if change is undertaken without careful consideration.
We’ve always been very much about the Lake District being a living, working environment.
Much of the landscape wouldn’t look anything like it does if it weren’t for the interaction between humans and the natural environment and of course this has to continue to conserve the much-valued aspects of the landscape and to maintain communities. In our view, this isn’t about pitting the landscape against the economy, it’s about enabling the two to work together.
Our view is that with the right type of change and development, in the right places, both can thrive.
When the charity takes a stand, the charge is almost always levelled at it that many of your members no longer live in the area and what ‘right’ do you have to tell people in the area what is good for them or not? What is your response to these assumptions?
Our staff are based in Kendal and around a third of our 6,000-pus members live in Cumbria.
The remainder live elsewhere but most, if not all of them are members because they are regular visitors and love the place and/or because they grew up here and enjoy returning and keeping a connection to the area.
We work closely with local communities that come to us seeking support and advice when they are concerned about a proposal or issue affecting the landscape, as well as when we are running projects and events such as the Great Cumbrian Litter Pick.
We have regular contact with our members and the communities we work with, so whilst we know not everyone will agree with everything we say or do all of the time, we are confident that we reflect their views.
However, we think that visitors’ voices are important too. Especially in an area whose economy is so dependent on tourism, it would be wrong to dismiss their views as irrelevant.
Anyone can respond to a planning application, so we have just as much ‘right’ as anyone else. Although founded as Friends of the Lake District in the 1930s, since the 1970s we have represented the Countryside Charity, CPRE for Cumbria, so we work across the whole county.
We are a landscape charity, so we naturally comment on things that affect the landscape. Just as other charities and organisations comment on things that affect whatever is in their remit.
What are the charity’s greatest achievements over the last 90 years?
Friends of the Lake District started at a public rally in Fitz Park, Keswick in June 1934 when a group of passionate people launched a small association with the aim of protecting the beauty, traditions and access to the landscape and to campaign for a national park. In 1951 the Lake District National Park was designated.
Since our inception, there have been many achievements, too many to list, but they include:
- 1936 – A major campaign saves Central Lakeland from large scale commercial spruce plantations.
- 1949 – Planners agree that all power lines should be underground except where there is no damage to the landscape.
- 1951 – Our actions lead to the creation of the Lake District National Park, one of the first in the country.
- 1964 – Friends advocates for traffic management solutions and not new roads or wholesale widening and straightening of roads.
- 1969 – Cumbrian Commons are protected, informed by comprehensive information and maps from our archives.
- 1977 – At the Windscale Inquiry, Friends argue to minimise the impact of the power plant on the landscape.
- 1980 – Successful campaign against raising the water level at Wastwater and Ennerdale, which would have permanently damaged the landscape and nature of the Lakes
- 1992 – Friends support a wind farm outside the national park at Haverigg on a disused airfield.
- 2000 – A 10mph speed limit for craft on Windermere becomes law thanks to a concerted campaign by us and others.
- 2003 – Friends produce report A Clear View which was key in persuading the government regulator, Ofgem, to establish an allowance for electricity companies to underground wires and poles within protected landscapes.
- 2001 – Friends provide £140,000 of support for a fledgling upland footpath repair project Fix the Fells. We remain a partner today, providing financial support through our landscape gifts.
- 2007 – We purchase a large part of the Helm, a popular fell on the edge of Kendal, to improve access and introduce native Cumbrian fell ponies.
- 2010 – 55 farms across Cumbria hold over 60 events as part of our three year Farming Landscapes programme showing the public how farming, food and the landscape are linked.
- 2011 – We run a successful campaign to stop the Government selling off Lakeland’s forests.
- 2011 – First ‘Fell Care Day’ at Hellvelyn with volunteers carrying out practical conservation tasks. To date 22 Fell Care Days have taken place.
- 2013 – At a time when England has lost 97% of its hay meadows, Friends create a new one at High Borrowdale.
- 2013 – 265 divers and 40 volunteers clear rubbish from Windermere, it is then turned into art by local children.
- 2014 – Our Leaders’ Landscape Training scheme begins, educating outdoor leaders about landscape, wildlife, habitats and communities.
- 2015 – We launch an appeal to restore damage to landscapes caused by Storm Desmond. It raises over £62,000 for projects including replacing bridges and repairs to footpaths.
- 2016 – The boundaries for the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales National Parks are finally extended following our campaign, which began in 2005.
- 2016 – A major campaign is successful in stopping 24km of 50m pylons being built in the national park.
- 2017 – Our campaigning helps to mobilise over 3000 objections to the zip wires over Thirlmere. The application is eventually withdrawn.
- 2018 – Dark Skies project launches to reduce light pollution in Cumbria.
- 2019 – A five year project, Westmorland Dales Hidden Landscape, starts in newly extended Yorkshire Dales to discover its hidden heritage.
- 2019 – Friends submit a formal request to Natural England to extend the southern boundary of the Lake District.
- 2019 – Friends work with the local community to secure removal of plans for a cable car up Whinlatter from the LDNPA’s new local plan
- 2023 – Cumbria Good Lighting Technical Advice Note is launched, a joint project in conjunction with all the Cumbrian planning authorities
