ARE more tourists good for us? The answer is clearly 'no' for the majority of Cumbrians, who do not get any return for the devastating traffic, the noise from off-roaders and other adventure seekers, the sheer number of people everywhere and the proliferation of second homes and dying of villages.

I certainly do not agree that Cumbria gets 'massive benefits' from tourism.

However, two articles in the Gazette of September 20 ('Tourist tax for Lakes?' and 'New rules will be a disaster') and a further one in the September 27 edition show this view is not shared by those who regard this area as a cash cow, primarily hoteliers, who promote the view that ever-increasing tourist numbers is an unequivocal benefit.

Johnathan Denby of South Lakes Hotels is outraged by the idea of a tourist tax and Rob Johnson, of Cumbria Chamber of Commerce, feels similarly about the government's recommendation of ceasing low-skilled immigration, pointing out that there are at least 10,000 EU migrants in Cumbria, mostly in the hospitality and food processing sectors.

I recall an experience about a year ago when I went into a bar in a typically Lakeland pub near Ullswater at about 10 o’clock to find it packed out. Imagine my amazement to find out that I was the only British customer - all the rest were workers from eastern Europe.

The fact is that the so-called 'hospitality' industry nowadays almost exclusively serves the interests of large, often multi-national, hotel groups (elsewhere in the same edition of this Gazette we read that both the County Hall and Castle Green Hotel have been sold to such firms), using cheap migrant labour. Local people do not gain from this.

Rob Johnson says the migrant labour cannot be replaced. This is because local people have been driven away by the unfavourable housing market or the low wages which migrants from low-wage economies are happy with.

If the hotels have to close due to labour shortages, so be it. Messrs Denby and Johnson should reflect on the fact that our fells and dales were home to people before off-comers moved in to milk this cash-cow.

Similar concerns apply to the Lake District National Park, which to judge by the recent 'Master Plan', is regarded by the body entrusted to run it as an asset to be further developed for commercial interests and not as a landscape treasure to be conserved for the benefit of the nation.

In fact, this document hardly contains the word 'conservation' (except to state that '…it was birthplace to an innovative conservation movement…') but has 'development' scores of times, often in the form of 'sustainable development', a meaningless term designed only to make development sound like a good thing.

I do not believe I am alone in thinking the development of the national park has gone far enough and now is the time to conserve that which makes the Lake District special and not submerge it under ever-increasing floods of tourists in their polluting cars, monstrous hotels and ugly plastic boats.

The Lake District is not here for exploitation by commercial interests, but for its value to the nation as a uniquely interesting landscape, which needs to be conserved, as the rest of the country disappears under a sea of concrete and tarmac.

Kent Brooks

Kendal