A BUSINESS leader says the high number of visitors to a Lake District honeypot tourist resort means the area can have facilities towns of similar sizes cannot.

Adrian Faulkner, from Windermere and Bowness Chamber of Trade, said there were approximately 15 million day visitors to Bowness in 2022.

He said that this allows Bowness to have access to services that a typical village would not have and that some businesses would shut down if they lost the footfall. 

He said that the Royalty Cinema and the range of restaurants and food options in Bowness come from tourism - and would be lost if the visitors were to go. 

His response comes in the context of two Bowness town councillors, Adrian Legge and Christine Cook, who said there was a large number of 'drunken and unruly' visitors coming to the area during the last summer.

They argued that Westmorland and Furness Council should create a cumulative impact assessment that recognises the impact that granting licences to new bars has had on the village. 

READ MORE: Bowness councillor says bars attract the 'drunk and unruly'

The council responded that it has followed the licensing objectives and can only do a cumulative impact assessment if there is evidence that the bars are creating unacceptable levels of crime or disorder. 

Mr Faulkner said the chamber remains 'ambivalent' on issues such as these and recognised that other locals may struggle with tourist influx. 

He said: "I can sympathise with the locals. We are not a village anymore, we are a tourist centre. We don't have the shops we had when I came here. We had a butcher and a baker, all of those have gone." 

Mr Faulkner said that a town council, or even a larger authority, cannot stop a type of business coming to a village. He said that if bars stopped coming to Bowness: "Businesses may close due to a lack of footfall.

"Overall bars contribute a great deal of income into this area. It also means we have things like a three screen cinema. There aren't enough locals to support it. We wouldn't have the good restaurants, we wouldn't have a lot of pub grub." 

Mr Faulkner said the drinking issues in Bowness are a national problem, and the bars and the police should enforce rules against serving people who are drunk. 

"I don't see an easy answer," he said.