Before Covid-19, over 85% of visitors arrived to the Lake District by private motor vehicle, and this proportion has increased further since ‘lockdown’ restrictions have eased. The challenge for the Lake District is to be a place where everyone, regardless of wealth or ability is able to access, via different modes of transport, the national park sustainably.
Low carbon travel needs to be the obvious and most attractive choice for essential and leisure travel. The nation’s mental and physical health benefits from active travel in an inspirational landscape need to be secured.
A number of additional actions we aim to deliver are identified in the list showing how we will deliver the Sustainable Development Goals.
Background information is available for this key challenge.
Our measures of success include:
- Reduction in visitors stating car as their main mode to travel around by 15% on 2018 baseline.
- Reduction in carbon from visitor travel of at least 10% on 2018 baseline.
- Increase in number of people arriving in the Lake by bus and rail by 15% on 2019 baseline.
- 25% increase in use of monitored active travel routes on 2019 baseline.
Research priorities
- What makes a holistically sustainable rural community (including research covering housing, employment, services and transport)?
- Comparing attitudes and behaviour for visitors and residents in terms of how they would like to move around the park.
- A cost benefit analysis of changing away from car dependency for businesses in the Lake District to address congestion and net zero.
- By 2025, inform our practise with awareness of global innovation and change in the transport and mobility sector, specifically in relation to behaviour change and implementation.
More information can be found in the research framework.
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Boat near Derwent Isle - John Hodgson
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Electric bikes at Holbeck - Go Lakes
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Langdale Rambler cyclist - Go Lakes
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Road biking in Langdale - Go Lakes
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The 555 bus - Stagecoach
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Bike hire centre - Adrian Naik
The other key challenges
This challenge does not operate in isolation, you may also be interested in the four other key challenges: