The Podium by Richard Leafe, chief executive of the Lake District National Park Authority, on the management of the green lane at Tilberthwaite, spectacularly misses the point (Gazette, October 31, 'All interests have to be taken into account').

It is not simply a matter of whether the surface of the lane is capable of bearing recreational motor vehicles (4x4s and motorbikes), and whether there are public vehicular rights on the lane.

Obviously, if those were the only issues, the lane could, at great expense, be surfaced, and resurfaced, again and again, until it reaches a standard that will effortlessly sustain any motor vehicle whose owner chooses to drive or ride along it.

No. The issue is whether it is in the public interest, and whether it is consonant with the statutory purposes of the national park, for non-essential vehicles to be on the track at all.

Peace and tranquillity are what the public expects on the superb green lanes of the Lakes - an expectation evidently felt by the quarter of a million people, so far, who have signed the online petition, calling for the permanent exclusion of non-essential motors.

Incidentally, in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, where ten traffic regulation orders on green lanes have been successfully imposed, the surface of the lanes was never cited as a reason for the orders.

The orders were imposed in order to protect the peace and tranquillity that are central to the park's special qualities. The Lake District National Park Authority should do likewise.

Michael Bartholomew

Chairman, the Yorkshire Dales Green Lanes Alliance

Otley