Protecting the Lake District from fly-campers, litter and wildfires has never been more important than it is right now.
Faced with growing numbers of fly-campers, putting out dangerous campfires, clearing up litter full of trapped wildlife and dealing with damaged trees are just some of the problems landowners are facing.
But not only do landowners have England’s largest national park to protect, they also have to fund and hire enough people to try and protect it.
It’s a task they must also manage while also obeying Government regulations on how they are allowed to carry out enforcement.
Every landowner in the Lake District has different ways of doing this, but where possible, teams do work together to tackle common or serious problems.
Alongside landowners hiring their own rangers and officers, in 2020, the national park made the decision to hire security officers in partnership with several other major landowners.
The security officers, who are from Tactical Security Options Ltd, a Lancaster-based security firm, have spent the past five years helping landowners to protect the national park.
They have the power to tackle anti-social behaviour, move people on, put out fires, and in worst cases, involve police or council officers to make arrests or issue fines. They also clear up after incidents.
This year, the security officers are also being used in conjunction with Cumberland Council’s new public space protection order.
While the security officers previously worked for the national park, this year, they are acting on behalf of United Utilities – one of the Lake District’s major landowners.
Over the last bank holiday alone, at Thirlmere, security spoke to 88 people camping or intending to camp, they extinguished 12 campfires and discovered 13 inappropriate campsites.
At Haweswater they spoke to 46 people camping or intending to camp, extinguished five fires, and broke six campsites.
In total, they engaged with 134 people camping or intending to camp inappropriately and engaged with countless others.
We spoke with Andrew Wright, woodland officer for United Utilities, whose role involves looking after woodlands, catchment officers and the security officers on United Utilities land.
He said that while water firm’s catchment controllers and woodland officers take on most of the ‘rangering’ duties – it’s the out of hours times where the security officers do the most work.
Andrew added that bringing the security officers was a no-brainer for the water firm.
He said: “The reasoning really is quite evident when you’re out in the park at this time of year.
“My biggest concern as a woodland officer is fire risk at the moment, and it does feel like nearly every fly-camping site has a fire pit in front of it.
“Having the security teams around at the weekend just means there is someone keeping an eye on those people and either moving them on or at least putting out the fires.
“The PSPO covers areas like Wasdale and Borrowdale, but they have a lot of different hotspots to cover, so we’re still finding it useful to have a security staff as well.
“But my impression is anti-social behaviour has always been a low-lying problem in the Lake District.
“It really ramped up during lockdown when people couldn’t leave the country, then a couple of years it went down again.
“But now it has just picked right back up and I would say it’s very similar to how it was during the lockdowns, if not worse.”
Dressed in tactical gear and carrying handcuffs and a badge, you wouldn’t be amiss to believe the security officers were police.
The teams work in pairs and are brought in at different times, typically peak times, when visitors increase, or when weather is good to target busy or popular areas.
But to keep their operation secret, Andrew tells us he can’t reveal the exact times, days or locations the security teams work or the number of officers that patrol.
He said: “Suffice to say if there’s good weather, and we think there’s due to be an influx of people, we’ll bring them in.
“At the moment while the weather is good, they’re around a lot more often than they would be if it was raining for example.
“We pre-book them depending on what we think the risk level is, but we can book them out for more.
“For us, the financial cost of protecting the estate cannot be underestimated because the cost of a wildfire would be extraordinary.
“I did notice some of the wild camping groups have spotted the security teams patrolling and talking with people and are discussing it online, so hopefully that has a positive impact.”
Officers will also patrol overnight and during evenings, particularly if teams believe an area is at high risk of anti-social visitors.
Andrew added that fly-camping is one of the biggest issues the Lake District faces as it normally brings dangerous campfires, littering, damaged property and anti-social behaviour in its wake.
Security officers will regularly put out campfires they find in the Lake District.
While they’ll ask the owners of the campfire to put it out themselves, if they refuse, they are able to use a fire extinguisher.
While a campfire may seem harmless, Andrew said it can be devastating, particularly to land where peat may sit beneath the soil or, in the case of Thirlmere, behind woodlands that are popular with fly-campers.
Peat is a natural fuel source, and if set alight, is incredibly difficult to put out.
Andrew said that stopping fires quickly and educating visitors – especially in hot and dry weather when wildfire risk increases – is a top priority.
He said: “99 per cent of the time it’s people camping with a fire that’s the problem.
“The security officers will start at car parks and if they see someone with camping gear they’ll go and have a chat with them.
“They’ll advise them that camping is not allowed on this estate, and they’ll explain our reasoning as landowners why and that the area is a drinking water catchment,
“When I go through the security logs, 90 per cent of the time that works.
“The other part of the job is going out and finding people who have already set up camp, and they’ll go and have a conversation with them.
“Now occasionally, around 10 per cent of the time, they’ll come across someone who is really reluctant to move and they will be verbally abused when they are told to move.
“Most of the time people are understanding. They’re either willfully ignorant or they’re just hoping nobody would catch them and when they are caught out, they’re happy to move.
“The 10 per cent who don’t are the ones who have been drinking usually, these people normally haven’t come for fell walking, they’ve just come to party.
“It’s somewhere pretty yes, but it’s also just somewhere that is out of sight in their mind, so get away with stuff they wouldn’t do at home.”
While wild camping – when done correctly – is tolerated in the Lake District, it is generally not permitted on United Utilities land.
Andrew added: “I’ve got pictures showing sites like a little tent city, because fly-campers will camp right next to each other, which is against the whole wild camping ethos.
“We don’t tolerate any camping because we’re a drinking water catchment, but that said, someone following the wild camping code, we should never find, because they should leave no trace and be packed up by daylight.
“The people we’re seeing aren’t wild campers, because we’re seeing them.”
Andrew said that teams also believed social media is driving up the number of fly-camping incidents happening in the Lake District.
He said: “It is absolutely certain spots which are promoted quite heavily online.
“So The Rigg at Haweswater, which is the peninsula at Haweswater with the trees on, Raven Crag in Thirlmere and Harrop Tarn in Thirlmere, they are all really popular spots.
“But if someone has already set up camp there, people will set up around it, so the problem spreads out throughout the land.
“Sometimes you end up with a mass amount of people in one area where people are all trying to camp in the same spot – which is against the wild camping ethos.”
Security teams and rangers also use social media as a tool to inform their intelligence of fly-camping.
Often, fly-campers will share their trips online, not realising they are fly-camping and this helps teams know where to target.
Andrew said: “Basically all the popular wild camping social media groups we’ve got people within them.
“Over at Haweswater we lease a lot of land to the RSPB, so I’ve got RSPB colleagues who sit in those wild camping groups and if they get wind of something coming up, they will give us the heads up.
“It’s not like trying to stop an organised party, it’s more if the weather is good, you can pretty much guarantee where people are going to be.
“I monitor social media, but I don’t do it often as the content is hard to watch.
“On Instagram if you search Thirlmere nearly every other video is a ‘wild camping’ video. If you go to YouTube, there’s at least two new videos a week on camping trips in Thirlmere.
“It is non-stop and people are just consuming that and it creates this idea that the Lake District is one big open campsite, which is not the case.”
But alongside wildfire risk, Andrew said damage to the environment was another big worry for United Utilities as landowners.
Andrew said: “Fire is the top concern when weather is hot and dry otherwise it’s damage to the catchment.
“Hand in hand with the fire we’re seeing a lot of damage to trees, people are taking hatchets and axes or chopping down little trees or established trees
“But they always cut trees that are green and still growing, so they don’t burn, they just smoke.
“It’s a double whammy when you discover someone has damaged your trees and they’re just sat smouldering on a fire because they never actually burnt properly.”
Andrew said while ‘litter’ might sound like a small amount of rubbish being left, it’s more comparable to festival-level litter.
He said: “In a particularly bad weekend we will fill up a couple of pick-up trucks with stuff, that includes tents, camping gear, barbecues, portable stoves, chairs, air mattresses and all that sort of stuff.
“Empty bottles and cans are really bad for small animals.
“We once found a 12-pack of beer left open that was filled with voles and mice and things that had crawled in and died and we do see that all the time.
“Glass bottles also pose a big fire risk when left in the sun.”
Andrew said while the security officers are helping to make a big difference – that people should not confuse their presence as meaning visitors are unwelcome.
He added: “It’s very easy for people to go oh you’re employing security, so we’re not welcome, but that’s not true. People are absolutely welcome to access land and we do want them here.
“We just don’t want people starting fires and camping or littering.
“More people are coming here and not everyone has heard of the countryside code, and not everyone is aware of the appropriate way to behave in a national park.
“But education is key, and our security teams will keep pushing that.”
