An outspoken Lake District National Park Authority member from Keswick has likened its policies to the Highland Clearances while delivering a withering parting shot at an organisation he has served for six years.
Tony Lywood’s final broadside to the board was delivered in the form of a question to the full meeting of the authority in Kendal — the last he will attend as a Cumbria County Council representative.
Mr Lywood said local people were becoming a rarity in many towns and villages within the national park.
“Whole streets within Keswick now have no permanent residents,” he said. “Yet this authority’s response is at best nonchalant and at worse being absent at their post. We are meant to conserve and enhance our communities; this we are gravely failing to do.
“There seems to be more local presence in our graveyards than in many of our streets.
“Even when this authority adds local occupancy clauses to planning permission it often will not or cannot enforce them due to lack of resources which is an utter disgrace as our planners are hard working and as efficient as they can possibly be.
“If the Lake District National Park is unable to maintain a supply of local needs housing, then at least they should police the restrictions that this authority has themselves imposed!”
Earlier this month the Reminder reported that Mr Lywood had slammed the LDNPA for not investigating alleged breaches of local occupancy clauses at five apartments at The Warehouse on the town’s Southey Street.
The Keswick Community Housing Trust (KCHT) had wanted the LDNPA to take action after one of the apartments was being let on Airbnb over a number of
years.
Mr Lywood added that the LDNPA was like a court with the powers to sentence but did not have the resources for proper enforcement.
“There are to date 600 live compliance cases with this authority … why? It simply is not good enough. Crazily, still only about 10 per cent of our budget is spent on planning.
“I have spent years on this board listening to reports and initiatives often produced at great expense, time, and effort and to what end? Meanwhile quietly in the background our communities are dwindling into ghost towns as more and more permanent dwellings become holiday lets.
“Over the last 15 years this authority has presided over the largest clearance of local people within the park ever and we should be ashamed of our lack of action to stem this tide. The far better-known historical process of the Highland Clearances was more brutal but had the same effect, driving local families out of their communities.
“This issue should be our number one priority and at the forefront of everything we do. If we do not then history will prove me right.
“At the same time this authority and its senior officers continue to promote the park at every opportunity as if we are some sort of Cumbria Tourism or part of a chamber of trade.
“This is hardly surprising since around 50 per cent of the organisation’s finance now directly comes from commercial activity with tourists! I find hard to reconcile this with being a planning authority. We are not and should never become the Lake District National Park Authority PLC.
“This will be my last chance to ask a question to the authority as a member and my question is a simple one: When will this authority wake up and smell the coffee? Wake up to the fact that its policies towards second homes and holiday lets are wholly inadequate and those that are in place are not even being properly enforced.’’
“The LDNPA is an organisation which is almost entirely officer lead, so I say this to the leadership and in particular our chief executive.
“At present this authority seems to know the price of everything and the value of nothing and without a serious change in direction his and this authority’s lasting reputation and legacy will be will like Nero’s fabled response to fire. Fiddling while Rome burned.’’
Speaking to the Reminder after the meeting, Mr Lywood said: “As far as I am concerned the LDNPA is not fit for purpose and how they can be a planning authority and commercial organisation in the same breath I find it hard to understand.
“This is not how national parks should be organised. They are completely out of touch with communities in the Lake District. Their headquarters are not even in the national park and most of the board don’t live within the park and are out of touch.
“Their policies are doing nothing to help stop the destruction of communities in the Lake District.”
The Reminder contacted the LDNPA for a response, but at the time of going to press, nobody had responded.
