How the Lake District National Park won Campaign for National Parks' Park Protector Award

Campaign for National Parks' Laura Williams explains why the judging panel chose Safer Lakes as the overall winner of the Park Protector Award 2021.

Safer Lakes fought off stiff competition from almost every National Park in England and Wales to win the top £1,000 prize in Campaign for National Parks’ Park Protector Awards 2021 – with the theme of ‘Innovation and agility in the face of a global pandemic’. The judges were unanimous in their decision.

"Far from being a standard crisis management response, Safer Lakes is a transformational way of working, which puts the National Park in a much stronger position for the future,” said Campaign for National Parks Chief Executive Anita Konrad.

What started as website to share key information with visitors to the National Park, soon became a new way of working for the Lake District National Park Authority and the partners it worked with to protect the Lake District during some very challenging times.

Solar-panelled cameras were installed in car parks to give people real-time information about where to park – something later adopted by other authorities. Conscious that its vehicles were covering a lot of miles while looking after the Park, the authority brought forward its efforts to introduce more electric vehicles and reduce its carbon footprint.

"New communications channels – including an active WhatsApp group – facilitated new ways of working and enabled the authority to know what was going on across the National Park" said Tony Watson, Head of Commercial Services & Communications at the Lake District National Park Authority. He dubbed it the ‘neighbourhood watch scheme for the National Park’.

Working closely with local emergency services, charities and landowners, the tourist board and other local authorities and a growing army of volunteers enabled the relevant teams to respond to problems such as fire, littering and gatherings before they became major incidents.

While beauty spots elsewhere in the country struggled to cope with an influx of visitors, the Safer Lakes approach enabled the Lake District National Park Authority to manage the needs of both visitors and residents to create a much less fractious environment and, crucially, to protect the National Park.

Safer Lakes enabled millions of visitors to enjoy their visit safely,” said the Lake District National Park Authority’s Director of Communications and Resources, Kerry Powell. “The scale of the multi-agency working is unprecedented for a rural landscape. What started as a community response, will become a permanent way of working for the future.”

The judging panel, which included BBC Countryfile Magazine Editor, Fergus Collins, RSPB Cymru Director Katie-Jo Luxton and Stephen Ross from Ramblers Holidays Charitable Trust (which sponsored the awards), added: “The Safer Lakes’ legacy will outlive the pandemic, 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 from, with its impact extending far beyond the Lakes.”