Fleetwith Pike. The aerial slide would run from the crags on the left of the fell
A Lake District businessman plans to build a zip wire ride from the top of a fell to encourage off-season tourism.
Mark Weir, owner of the Honister Slate Mine, has lodged a planning application to install the aerial slide on Fleetwith Pike. The mile-long (1½km) wire ride would enable visitors to the existing via ferrata climb to finish with a slide down to the mine, 350m (1,150ft) below.
The proposed zip slide would follow the line of the old Lancaster Aerial cable system that transported quarry materials from the area near the top of the 648m (2,126ft) mountain until it was dismantled in the 1950s.
The new ride would be called the Lancaster Aerial Flight and Mr Weir says it would help preserved jobs at the site during the winter season, when he usually has to lay of half of the staff at Honister.
Mr Weir installed Britain’s first via ferrata – a system first used in Italy’s mountains – a system of fixed cables, ladder rungs and other protection, to enable less experienced climbers to tackle the route on Fleetwith Pike.
He also courted controversy during the washed-out Original Mountain Marathon of 2008 when he said: “We have come within inches of turning the Lake District mountains into a morgue.” He later proposed, tongue in cheek, that a planned statue of Alfred Wainwright should be placed on Fleetwith Pike, overlooking the Honister mine.
The Lake District National Park Authority is expected to hear the full application at its meeting at Kendal on 2 June.
Peter Evans
22 April 2010Another ludicrous madcap plan from a businessman trying to turn the mountains into a theme park for his own ends. Stands alongside the Lurcher's Gully controversy in the Lake District and putting a funicular railway up Ben Wyvis.
This is a national park we're talking about and once these things get a hold, precedents are created and someone else tries it on.
Let's hope the planners do what needs to be done to keep a lid on it. And if anyone has any respect for the Lake District they need to campaign to stop this.
Keeping people employed through the winter is a red herring designed to attract sympathy so he can achieve his objective.
Ian Tupman
28 April 2010I agree with Peter Evans. Setting a precedent like this would be the thin end of the wedge and would lead to other, similar commercial ventures which would detract from the natural beauty of this special part of Britain.
The regular presence of Mr.Weir's helicopter over the Lake District fells does not suggest he is suffering financial hardship and I'm sure his staff are not too upset at not having to work at Honister in the winter. At the end of the day, who would benefit most from them being there?
Honister Hause is turning into a slate theme park with walkers and motorists alike greeted by an Easyjet look-a-like sign which is totally out of place. Enough is enough!
Frances Bell
30 April 2010I have been to New Zealand and the scale of the countryside there is absolutely vast. The outdoor activity area goes on for hundreds of miles rather than our pocket-handkerchief sized Lake District. I
The current activity and recreation pattern in the UK is to go along and join something; participate as a passive recipient of thrills and adventure. This is bogus adventure. Real adventure is planning and carrying out a walk, a marathon run, a challenge like the Bob Graham round, walking up Grasmoor in the height of this year's winter; a two-day walk with bivi across the mountains. You think it up, you plan, you achieve it. That's real satisfaction. Getting on someone else's wire is adrenaline junkie stuff. Like a drug high, you buy an injection of stuff or buy an experience and the seller hopes you will be back for more.
Young people should be encouraged to believe that they do have the ability to create and carry out real adventures, not passive substitutes .
Steve Collins
21 May 2010Re - Frances Bell
"drug high, you buy an injection of stuff or buy an experience and the seller hopes you will be back for more"
For goodness sake he wants to build a zip wire on the side of a hill for people to slide down. He is not opening a crack house outside Grasmere infants school!!
Who the hell are you to dictate what constitutes an adventure for any individual. The Lake District is not just for fell walkers and extremists who feel that they have a god given right to keep things the way they think it should be!
So you have been to NZ, good for you, couldn't wait to tell us could you, still not really on most peoples lists of weekend destinations is it!
The Lake District is pocket sized if you compare it to New Zealand or the moon or Greenland, but if you are a family who live in the middle of Manchester with 2.4 kids who want a weekend away in the countryside, the Lake District is a huge playground where you can get lost and completely away from it all.
Your smug tales of walking up mountains in the middle of the winter and camping out eating deer dropings are not everyones bag. People like you contribute very little financially to an area like the Lakes when you visit, yet you are happy to enjoy its surroundings and public amenities and pontificate about how it should be maintained and developed.
As a resident of the Lake District I see many families who are spending time away together mountain biking, hiring boats and maybe the occasional zip wire who are satisfied that compared to their urban existence they have had an adventure, don't try to take this away from them or remove it's progress!
The Lake District is an adventure playground for us all and like any good playground it needs a variety of facilities within.
Richard Senior
23 May 2010A very spirited and aggressive defence of the defenceless. Insulting someone is not really a substitute for having a good argument.
The Lake District is a National Park, not an adventure playground. A protected area which the LDNP themselves define:
"A clearly defined geographical space, recognized, dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the long-term conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values”.
A zip-wire does not fit in that definition. The associated noise, additional traffic and construction will have a detrimental effect on the natural tranquility and beauty of the immediate area. The very reason that thousands of visitors of all persuasions flock to the Lakes every year, spending their cash in campsites, hotels, cafes, shops and so on.
There are places to build zip-wires and similar attractions. In the midst of one of our most important national parks is not such a place in my opinion.