The Peak District Park’s evidence to the select committee included in its proposals Action

The Peak District Park’s evidence to the select committee included in its proposals “Action to limit the numbers of motor vehicles in National Parks” and “An enhanced programme of public investment in traffic management and park and ride.” Zoning is a real possibility. “There are enormous conflicts of interest in the countryside,” she says. “I think the only way to resolve the problems is with very careful, well thought- out planning and management. It’s all a question of finding a balance – but that’s a very difficult question.”Measures may have to be extreme.

They might be near a decision by July.Helen Jackson, MP for Sheffield Hillsbor-ough, who sits on the select committee, has part of the Peak District Park in her constituency. So far there have been 50 days of public inquiry, involving nine barristers, two QCs and evidence from 37 organisations and 75 individuals. There, in the Lake District, a public inquiry has been trying for over a year to decide whether speed limits on Lake Windermere should be set at 10mph – which would effectively rule out powerboats and waterskiing. They have been taken by helicopter to see the erosion on the moors in the Peak District, and by road to Windermere to look at the problems of congestion and power boats. Over the past few months MPs on the committee have waded through hours of spoken and reams of written evidence from over 100 organisations. “We would therefore submit that effective partnership means mutual promotion of partnership objectives,” its evidence droned on. They have a living to earn.”IN THE House of Commons on a hot Wednes-day in May the Select Committee on the Environmental Impact of Leisure Activities was listening to evidence of almost unbearable turgidity from an organisation called Business in Sport and Leisure.

“They are not here to be dotted around in smocks chewing hay for the benefit of people visiting from towns. “People who live in these parks feel beleaguered by a variety of pressure groups all trying to push their own interests,” he says. Peter Atkinson, a backbench MP who has tabled an amendment to remove the word “quiet” from the quiet enjoyment clause of the Enviroment Bill, has part of the Northumberland National Park in his Hexham constituency. National Park residents are campaigning increasingly vociferously for more control over the running of the parks – and some of them, of course, earn their living from visitors and want to encourage them.

The way I look at it is live and let live.”This sort of old-fashioned, accommodating approach is being eroded as rapidly as the peat and heather. One of my sons is dead against it after hearing all the talk He’s on the council. Since all this has been on the boil they’ve got one another persuaded that they don’t want it, kicking up a shindig.”Maybe I’m too old to get worked up But I don’t think this bridleway will make much difference. You get the odd ones leaving the gates open, you know, but they don’t cause that much trouble. When Susan Rogers approached him three years ago about letting a linking section of the bridleway cross his land, he gave permission straight away.”I couldn’t understand why people were so against it,” he says “They’ve been on the phone to me about it It might get your back up if you’re that way inclined But we’ve got used to the visitors, more or less.