The badly eroded Chapel Gate, which is the subject of a legal battle
More details of an upcoming television series looking at controversies in Britain’s national parks were released today.
Richard Macer’s fly-on-the-wall documentary Tales from the National Parks includes footage of the controversial late Lakeland businessman Mark Weir confronting campaigners.
The Peak District National Park Authority also gave the award-winning film-maker behind-the-scenes access to its rights of way team tackling the problems caused by trail-bikers’ and off-roaders’ use of green lanes.
The documentary features local residents and protest groups wanting 4×4s and trail bikes banned from Byways Open to All Traffic in the national park and motor vehicle users who are fighting to keep their legal rights to continue using these unsurfaced countryside routes.
Jim Dixon, chief executive of the authority, said: “We gave Richard Macer and his team full access to internal meetings, meetings with the public and our committees so viewers could see the real issues the rights of way team face on a daily basis.
“During the course of the year’s filming you are able to see the very different views of people on both sides of the argument, how the issue develops and the difficult and challenging role we play in managing the issue.
“Our staff are incredibly passionate about the national park and work really hard to make it a better place to live, work and visit.”
Part of the documentary covers the decision to introduce an experimental traffic regulation order banning 4×4s and trail bikes from using Chapel Gate, near Edale and ends with news that the order is being challenged in the High Court by the Trail Riders’ Fellowship.
The BBC Four programme, which is due for transmission at 9pm on Sunday 30 October, will also feature the fight over the proposed Cononish gold mine in the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs national park.
Caroline Wigley
23 October 2011I have just watched the "Tales from the national parks: the Lake District", featuring the controversial zip wire proposal.
I was left feeling uncomfortable on several points. Firstly the position of the chief executive of the Lake District National Park, Richard Leafe, which was so obviously not level-headed and un-biased. It seemed to me that Mr. Leafe had fallen under the spell of Mark Weir. I think that chief executives of National Parks would be well advised to remain totally objective. It would be a very bad thing for a National Park to have a chief executive who was a city person without any feeling for the natural beauty of the National Park's wilderness and who is some sort of second-rate adrenaline junkie.
Secondly I was left feeling saddened that the future of National Parks is left mostly with the judgement of men; women featured very little in the decisions. If Mark Weir had not died tragically, his partner (who by the way was much more persuasive in her presentation in favour of the zip wire) would not have been able to air her views.
Thirdly I did feel very sorry for the sons and partner of Mark Weir to have been robbed of their father/partner by Mr. Weirs megalomaniac pursuit of his own goals, fueled it seemed to me, an outsider, by his vanity and foolhardiness and arrogance.
Altogether the program left me feeling very worried for the future of National Parks if the decision about them is left mostly in the hands of the sort of men we encountered in this program.
Adam
24 October 2011Caroline
I watched the programme as someone who grew up in the , someone who has spent many years in the mountains, in many places around the world. Aside from your viewpoints on women representation (which I partly agree with), I took from the programme feelings diametrically opposite to yours.
The CEO of a national park is there to lead the national park in the right direction, resolve differing viewpoints, but also be a decision maker. His role is not to be completely neutral. if decisions were simply around counting the number of the submissions for and against a proposal, the countryside would end up a museum for those wealthy enough for the attendance fee. There is no reason a CEO cannot be from the city, in the same way that a CEO of a manufacturing company can come from the country. I agree with you regarding his second rate-ness on one area only - he needs to learn the J stroke in a canoe.
Regarding your second point, it should not be a matter of gender how national parks are governed. Both women and men are capable of making monumentally bad decisions. Many of the great environmentalists who have affected lasting change have been men, as have many of those industrialists whose industries have destroyed the worlds rivers and oceans. Our National Parks are not wilderness, they are, in general, farmed uplands which are unsuited to any intensive agriculture. There is almost zero natural forest left in the UK. Almost 100% of the landscape is manmade and man managed, what you seek to to preserve is not natural, but in general, the state in which it happens to be in now. Without business and tourism, the areas will die. Sheep farming is simply not a sustainable model to bring in revenue to these areas. Lets ensure the model of that business brings people into the hills who might otherwise not buy gore-tex clothes and stay in boutique B&Bs.
Your third point is simply unpleasant and mean spirited, especially to Mr. Weirs family after his death. He pursued something he believed in, creating sustainable tourism and jobs in an area he loved, and likely knew far better than you or I ever will. I'm stunned you wrote such words.
I think the program showed life for exactly what it is. A difficult balance between conservation & preservation (different things), business, red tape and different attitudes to life. To simplify this as you do to men vs women, city vs town, develop vs not develop, is to miss the entire point of the program