Is the 'tourist tax' realistic?

Charging visitors to national parks such as the busy Lake District sounds an attractive idea, but it could easily backfire, says one local

- Douglas Chalmers

MY schoolboy definitions of ‘public consumption’ were listening to a radio through an open window or reading over somebody’s shoulder—in other words, enjoying something I hadn’t paid for or that was already there. There are many such opportunities for public consumption in Cumbria and the Lake District.

When a former colleague from London visited, he would always call at Hartside Café, now sadly burned down. At 1,904ft above sea level on the edge of the Pennines, he would sit with tea and a scone, drinking in the views across the Lake District, Eden Valley, Solway Firth and into Scotland. I once sat behind two Americans on a train leaving Lancaster. ‘Any second,’ said one excitedly. ‘Look to your left… now!’ And there were the Southern Fells laid out in the evening light.

Many enjoy the Lake District without setting foot there, so I did shake my head on seeing the headline ‘Tourist tax could raise £17.5m for the Lake District National Park’, which reignites the debate on whether visitors should pay towards the upkeep of beauty spots.