20 jobs are under threat at the Lake District National Park, as the authority reveals the full extent of redundancies coursed by the Pandemic.

The news was passed on to all affected staff by today's announcement. The redundancies are part of plans to level up the budget for the Nation Park after the financial blow brought about by COVID 19. The job losses will be part of an overall plan to reduce the £1.2 million deficit that has built up since the start of the pandemic.

The organisation which is partly publicly funded and partly privately funded plans to overhaul its operations to drive down its deficit.

Earlier the chief executive of the national park Richard Leafe said the virus had affected the authority's financial position saying,

"Like many organisations, we have been financially hit by the Covid pandemic," Further saying, "during the lockdown, all the commercial services were closed down. Car parks, information centres, shops, cafés and boating centres all closed. This meant that we had no income from any of them. This reduced our overall income so now is the time that we should look at making savings."

"We have been talking to DEFRA for support for some of our losses during this financial year and to save on staffing costs we took advantage of the furlough scheme," added Mr Leafe. "Two-thirds of our staff are currently on the scheme as we speak."

Visitors and locals are only just beginning to return to one of the county's biggest assets but the income level will take a long time to get back to normal.

Mr Leafe said the park normally received money from both outside finances and from what it makes itself saying, "We get £5.5 million from Government each year and a similar amount comes in from our commercial income, but we don't expect income from commercial services to return to normal any time soon,"

The news comes as blow to employees, many of whom have worked for the Lake District National Park for years.