LAKE District national park planners meet tomorrow to decide whether to allow a Bowness holiday business to expand.

Braithwaite Fold Caravan Park off Glebe Road has lodged an application with the Lake District National Park Authority.

It plans to provide 27 new pitches for touring caravans on a woodland area of the site near the existing caravan park and car park used to store boats and caravans on a small section of hard standing.

But it would require 14 trees of 42 to be felled, although the applicants have pledged to plant 12 new oak trees, along with native bushes and hedges.

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The site is run by the Camping and Caravanning Club with the land owned by South Lakeland District Council.

Windermere Town Council has concerns that it represents “over-development” of Braithwaite Fold.

Local landscape charity The Friends of the Lake District has also said that it would “impact” on the priority habitat for deciduous woodland.

According to the UK biodiversity action plan, that type of woodland is one of the most threatened habitats of its kind, and in need of conservation.

The Lake District National Park Authority has said the proposal would lead to “more intense and prolonged” activity from people and caravans.

However, officers did not consider this “harmful” given the long-standing history of the site as a caravan park.

“There is little by way of woodland flora or other characteristics that compromise a woodland of this type and there are large elements of the habitat absent,” said an officer’s report, recommending the application be approved.

It said: “The current site is of poor ecological quality which would be improved as a result of the landscaping scheme proposed. I conclude that the proposal represents an enhancement of the ecological condition of the site.”

It has been recommended that the plan is approved with four conditions.

The issue will be decided by the national park’s development control committee at a meeting in Kendal on Wednesday (March 6).