Over 106 fly campsites were moved on by teams at just two Lake District hotspots this year.
This year’s peak season in the national park, which typically runs from around Easter until the October half term, saw a county-wide crackdown on outdoor anti-social behaviour.
Organisations including the national park authority, councils, landowners, Cumbria police and crime commissioner David Allen, have worked together to address issues like fly camping, littering and campfires across the park.
A Public Space Protection Order was put in place for the first time by Cumberland Council which resulted in several fines being issued throughout the year and joint multi-agency and volunteer patrols also took place in a bid to deter anti-social behaviour.
The action followed calls for enforcement to better protect the national park and Cumbria’s outdoor spaces from anti-social behaviour and the impact of social media.
United Utilities, one of the major landowners in the national park, also brought in security officers this year, for extra support.
This year marks the first time United Utilities has recorded anti-social behaviour incident numbers on its land.
Andrew Wright, woodland officer for the water firm, said for its Thirlmere and Haweswater sites, it has been a busy year for educating visitors.
He added: “Between Thirlmere and Haweswater, we spoke to 672 people, so that’s us engaging with people and looking for people with camping gear to see whether they’re intending to behave inappropriately.
“We’ve also extinguished 47 campfires between the sites and we discovered 106 campsites, approximately half of which had an active fire.
“To me, it has felt a slightly busier year than the last couple, which I think is representative of how good the weather was.
“The busiest time by far was spring and the spring bank holidays by far. That tallies with previous years, as winter ends and people get their first holidays, they’re often seeking to stay locally or within the country.
“In the height of summer we would be going out a couple of times a week to collect camping gear left behind and dispose of that in skips at our office.
“It was tents, camping chairs but also whole air beds with electric compressors and even whole cases of beer.”
Andrew said that major concerns aside from things like fly camping included damage done to trees by people chopping them down for firewood and fires in general.
He added that young trees are often targeted as they’re easier to cut down, which impacts the future resilience of forests and woodlands in the area.
Campfires can be particularly dangerous in the Lake District, as many beauty spots have peat soil – which if set alight, could result in a campfire turning into a serious underground fire or wildfire.
Andrew added: “It was such a dry spring and summer and fire risk was really high, so the fact we found 47 campfires and didn’t have a wildfire on our land is a huge success.
“What is slightly worrying is quite a few of those fires were unattended, so if we weren’t out there actively looking for and extinguishing them, it could have been a real problem.
“Often they were also left smouldering, so people perhaps thought they were extinguished, but it is very easy for a smouldering fire to relight.
“With the peat soil we have in Thirlmere and Haweswater, it’s a real risk a fire could spread underground and pop in other places.
“That’s why we have to focus on talking with people to try and educate them to not start campfires.”
Andrew said that while both internal teams and the extra security officers moved on 106 fly campsites, there was only one incident that required police involvement.
He added: “We only had one incident where police were called due to drug use, but these situations are very much so a minority. We only call if a crime is being committed. Our first effort is always to engage with and educate people.
“It does show that the majority of cases are of law abiding people who are just uninformed and that it’s more an education thing than anything else.”
Andrew also said that he felt work between organisations to tackle anti-social behaviour has made a difference this year.
He said: “I think the partnership working has been really strong this year actually. We’ve done some multi agency patrols on our land, so we’ve had partners from the national park authority and volunteers coming out on busy weekends and chatting with people and that’s been really good.
“The PSPO with Cumberland Council has also been really good. We’ve been providing evidence to the council of where people have been committing anti-social behaviour and the council have been following up on our behalf.
“The people who are of interest to the council from a PSPO perspective are a minority of cases, but it’s great they can enforce that.”
Social media has also remained a concern for all organisations part of the national park throughout the year.
Andrew said: “If I go on Instagram or TikTok and look at any of our sites, there’s tonnes of material out there advertising it as a great place to camp and start fires, so I do think it’s being driven by social media.
“It’s great that it’s telling people about these locations, it’s the messaging that needs to be correct.
“For tree damage, I think it’s where some of that comes from. There’s a lot of what is referred to as bushcraft videos and it makes things look really easy and appealing, but in reality we get people turning up with hand tools, hacking at trees and making a mess.
“It’s the next generation of small trees being cut, and eventually without an understory there is no forest.”
But Andrew said both the national park and its partners have been working to address the impact of social media.
He said: “We sit on the Lake District strategic visitor management group and they’ve been running a campaign this last season called ‘influence the influencer’.
“They’ve been using someone popular to spread the good word online so they’ve been going out and mythbusting and explaining what is and is not appropriate in the park.
“That’s a good campaign we’re supporting and at a local level we have watched the socials a lot through summer.
“If one person puts a location on, you get more people coming in the following weeks, so it is useful to keep track and see where people going.”
The national park and its partners, including United Utilities, are currently working on a review to establish what the joint ambitions are for the next peak season.
He said: “We will keep engaging with the strategic visitor management group and keep discussing with the national park and partners about what the joint ambition is for next season. That review process is taking place currently.
“We are also reviewing the use of security for next season and we might decide it is appropriate to continue it.
“I do feel we hit things pretty well this year and we were engaging with people from day one and I expect us to do the same next year.”
To find out more about fly camping vs wild camping, read on here.
