JUST after Easter you kindly published a letter of mine, which expressed real concern at the rise in tourism in the Lake District.

Your article 'Concern is raised over visitor jump' (Gazette, July 25) continues this debate.

Michael Carter is right to be 'unsure' but we all need not to be 'unsure' but 'really worried', not only at the current levels of visitor numbers but at this never-ending quest to bring ever more visitors into the area.

I am astonished that Cllr Jim Bland has the view 'the visitor problem is a problem we can live with'. He then, amazingly, states we should focus 'on problems we have got not ones we haven't'. So, Cllr Bland do we or don't we have a problem?

It is interesting Steve Ratcliffe believes we can 'disperse' tourists. Of course we cannot do this. Overseas visitors mainly come to Windermere lake and the towns in the central Lakes. They have no intention of going to Barrow and the West Coast.

So I will say once again: we do not have the infrastructure to cope with current levels, let alone an increase.

South Lakeland District Council has recently made matters worse by removing car parking spaces at Braithwaite Fold in order to expand the caravan park. For the vast majority of visitors who don't want to walk we have little to interest them and they always look bored with their visits.

Just visit Bowness during the six-month summer season to see how bad things are.

The tourism industry, the Lake District National Park Authority, Cumbria Tourism etc are being totally unfair on those of us who live here and sustain the local economy throughout the year.

In my earlier letter I asked whether any of these people coming up with their plans ever visit Bowness to experience the problems at first hand. I doubt it!

David Thomas

Bowness