Celebrate the volunteers who cared for our national parks, such as the Lake District, over the past year
This year’s Park Protector Awards celebrate the people and organisations who have helped safeguard Britain’s national parks in the most challenging of times. Laura Williams reveals the winners
An innovative live car park monitoring system, nature activity packs distributed via food banks and a ‘Bogtastic’ van are just some of the initiatives that have helped people connect with and protect our national parks in what has been a very challenging year.
These incredible efforts have this month been recognised as part of Campaign for National Park’s (CNP) Park Protector Awards, seeking to reward innovation and agility in the face of a global pandemic.
Every national park in England and Wales saw a huge increase in visitor numbers between lockdowns. They all faced similar challenges: how to manage this demand while protecting the landscape and local communities and adhering to Government guidance to restrict the spread of the pandemic. There was an added dimension of how to engage with new visitors, many of whom hadn’t been to a national park before. For most national park authorities, a single initiative wasn’t enough – it was the huge co-ordinated effort by the Lake District National Park team, with its ‘Safer Lakes’ campaign, that saw it win the Park Protector Award 2021.
The team launched new communication channels, including a WhatsApp group that involved representatives from the National Park Authority and other landowners, such as National Trust, volunteers and emergency services. This enabled multi-agency teams to act at speed to put out fires, tackle illegal camping and respond to local concerns. On the busiest days, some 1,000 messages dropped into the group.
Tony Watson, head of visitor services and communications at Lake District National Park says: “It became the neighbourhood watch scheme for the national park: people were telling us ‘the car park is busy’, ‘tree being attacked’ or ‘fire on an island’. We mobilised a ‘doing team’ with police, firefighters, our rangers and National Trust rangers. “We moved from an ‘army of grannies’ – they call themselves that! – monitoring car parks to solar-panelled cameras monitoring car parks and relaying information to visitors via the website.”
The system was picked up by the Government as a good way to manage outdoor space and is now being used by other authorities.
Kerry Powell, director of communications and resources at
Lake District National Park, says: “Safer Lakes enabled millions of visitors to enjoy their visit safely, providing advance information on where to go, what to do, and help people avoid busy areas with provision of more than 1,000 additional parking spaces, alleviating community pressure and allowing more people to enjoy the park. It engaged a new team of volunteer welcome hosts on the ground, engaging with people to reduce parking issues and excess litter. When litter was an issue, they helped clean it up. The scale of the multi-agency working is unprecedented for a rural landscape,” adds Powell. “Together we are stronger and our landscape is safer, and that’s what Safer Lakes is all about. What started as a community response will become a permanent way of working.”
“The Safer Lakes’ legacy will outlive the pandemic,” affirms CNP chief executive Anita Konrad, “with new ways of working established, new volunteers engaged and new innovative technology solutions adopted. It’s something other national parks can and will learn, with its impact extending far beyond the Lakes.”
“Together we’re stronger and our landscape is safer; that’s what Safer Lakes is all about”