ON SUNDAY

DEANO

HAVE you heard the Lake District’s latest promotional commercial?

“Come to The Lakes – it’s lovely and you can even shit in people’s front gardens!”

OK, that’s not EXACTLY how Richard Leafe, the chief executive of the Lake District National Park, put it.

But he might as well have. Back in December, Mr Leafe drivelled: “We are deficient in terms of young people; we are deficient in terms of black and minority- ethnic communities and we are not particularly well visited by those who are less able in terms of their mobility.

“Our challenge is to see what we can do to reverse that, to encourage people from broader backgrounds into the national park to be able to benefit in the same way as those other groups do.”

As a man who has spent his entire working life in the quango industry, it’s hardly surprising that Leafe caught “diversity”.

And, by Christ, that’s what he’s dumped on the Lakes.

Little old ladies on coach tours and sturdy hiking lesbians are out – lager- laden scumbags are in.

Residents say the Lakes have become “like Blackpool seafront”.

Groups sit around drinking, smash fences for firewood, camp illegally, dump litter and terrify animals, locals say.

Without a word of a lie, people have SHIT in gardens of the picturesque Cumbrian villages.

And Leafe’s response to this pandemonium?

A f** king classic…

“We have got a more diverse demographic visiting.”

So, 1,000- year- old hedgerows have been burned to the ground, the village church has been stolen brick by brick, there’s a Vauxhall Nova in the duck pond, the sheep have been pulled apart by devil dogs and the postmistress is picking turds out of her daisies.

But it’s okay, because a “more diverse demographic” is visiting.

A review of this Leafe character on his LinkedIn page reads: “He has a great sense of humour.”

That’s one f** king way putting it.

The Park Authority went out of its way to encourage people to the Lakes who would normally spend their summer shitting and puking all over Benidorm.

Did they really think they’d change their ways when they pitched up in Buttermere?

If jokers like this are in charge of Britain’s natural heritage, we may as well concrete over the f** king lot now and save ourselves a lot of heartache down the line. of