I HAVE been increasingly concerned in recent months about the number of old long-established Lake District farms being sold-up and closing-down.

It is just that as we move around the Lakes we keep seeing the farms we always knew and loved for their traditional busy, messy, lived-in feeling suddenly becoming heartless empty shells.

The animals gone, the sheds and equipment cleared-out, the farmyard tidied and the house lifeless.

It is obvious that these will not be continuing as working farms; that they will become smart, tidy homes for those that can afford; and any old traditional buildings will eventually become holiday lets or second homes.

I fully appreciate the hardships of hill farming but, as the Lake District has recently been awarded World Heritage Site status for the traditional working landscape, I feel it is vital that we do not continue to see so many of these old, traditional hill farms disappearing - it alters the whole feeling of the environment, from working to picture-postcard.

I urge the National Trust and the government to step-in to assist farmers to be able to continue by earning a living wage (through government subsidies; or the trust continuing Beatrix Potter's tradition and buying the farm for tenancy if necessary).

This would allow the younger generation of farmers to continue the tradition and maintain the landscape and general feeling of the Lake District for everyone in the future.

D. Gordon

Grange-in-Borrowdale