Close the campsite loophole in the Lake District
The Issue
Update, November 2026: the Authority has acted. Now it needs to hold its nerve.
On 30 September 2026 the Lake District National Park Authority voted 15 to 1 to make an Article 4 Direction covering the whole National Park. From 1 March 2028, anyone wanting to run a temporary campsite will need planning permission, like any other campsite.
The Direction is out for consultation until 16 November and the Authority decides on 16 December whether to confirm it. This petition now asks for one thing: confirm the Direction as made, covering the whole Park, without exceptions.
Why it is needed. Since 2023 any field in England can become a campsite of up to 50 pitches for 60 days a year with no planning permission, no distance from homes, no fire inspection and no wildlife survey. Forty-seven were notified in the Lake District National Park this year alone. The Authority’s own officers have said in writing that they cannot refuse one.
What happened in Bowness. The campsite beside Grade II listed Bordriggs Farmhouse, in a conservation area designated just seven weeks earlier, ran for the full 60 days. Fires on the grass in the week of the national wildfire alert. Toilets 9 metres from a neighbour’s back door. Tents left collapsed for weeks, bedding dumped at the field edge, noise at night, litter still on the grass a week after the last tent went. Residents reported it all. Nothing could be done.
And it's happening across the Park. At Troutbeck, a campsite beside two listed buildings in the conservation area. At Nibthwaite, campers and dogs in the water where otters feed. At Overwater, breeding lapwing gone from the shore since the field beside it became a campsite. Campers’ own reviews of Lake District pop-ups this summer describe music until 4am, overflowing toilets and police call-outs, with nobody on site to call.
This is NOT a ban. A petition against the Direction says it would ban pop-up campsites. It would not. Campsites can still open with planning permission, and well-run sites in sensible places will get it. What ends is the field next to someone’s home, a listed building or a lake shore opening with no one allowed to say no. Most sites may cause no problem. Where they do, the problems are serious, and an application is the only way to tell in advance which is which.
We are not against camping. We are against nobody being asked. Please sign, and please email planning@lakedistrict.gov.uk before 16 November to say you support the Direction.
What we said in August:
Imagine, right behind your back garden, a pop-up campsite in a field: up to 50 pitches, around a hundred people, and only one portaloo. The smell. The noise at midnight. The litter. And a habitat where, amongst other wildlife, red squirrels and deer have been seen, gone.
That is what we are facing in Bowness-on-Windermere, where a campsite is due to open on 15 August 2026 in a conservation area, beside a Grade II listed 17th century farmhouse. A Government Planning Inspector ruled only last year that this open land contributes positively to the setting of that historic building.
On the adjoining field, an application for holiday pods was refused in April after full assessment of drainage, protected trees, access and the setting of a listed building. The campsite next door requires no assessment of any of those things and cannot be refused.
And we are told nobody can stop it.
In 2023 the Government created a permitted development right allowing pop-up campsites of up to 50 pitches with no planning permission at all. The operator simply notifies the planning authority. There is nothing to approve and nothing to refuse: no assessment of noise, waste, drainage, wildlife or fire risk, and no consideration of the families living feet away. The Lake District National Park Authority has confirmed to us in writing that whatever it thinks of the impacts, it cannot intervene, and that this is not the only such site causing concern in the National Park.
This is happening in the Windermere catchment, where the lake's water quality is already a national scandal, and inside the Windermere Villas Conservation Area, which the Authority itself designated only in June 2026 precisely because this landscape is so special.
The Lake District is a National Park and a World Heritage Site. It is supposed to be the most protected landscape in England. If a 50-pitch campsite can appear beside people's homes here, with less scrutiny than a garden shed, the word "protected" has lost its meaning.
We are asking for two things:
The Lake District National Park Authority should make an Article 4 Direction, urgently and with immediate effect in its most sensitive areas, restoring the requirement for planning permission for temporary campsites.
The Government should amend the permitted development right to exclude National Parks and conservation areas.
We are not against camping. The Lake District welcomes campers, and Bowness alone has established, well run sites minutes away. We are against a loophole that lets anyone turn any field into an unregulated campsite beside people's homes, with no questions asked.
If it can happen here, it can happen to your field too. Please sign and share.
2,058
The Issue
Update, November 2026: the Authority has acted. Now it needs to hold its nerve.
On 30 September 2026 the Lake District National Park Authority voted 15 to 1 to make an Article 4 Direction covering the whole National Park. From 1 March 2028, anyone wanting to run a temporary campsite will need planning permission, like any other campsite.
The Direction is out for consultation until 16 November and the Authority decides on 16 December whether to confirm it. This petition now asks for one thing: confirm the Direction as made, covering the whole Park, without exceptions.
Why it is needed. Since 2023 any field in England can become a campsite of up to 50 pitches for 60 days a year with no planning permission, no distance from homes, no fire inspection and no wildlife survey. Forty-seven were notified in the Lake District National Park this year alone. The Authority’s own officers have said in writing that they cannot refuse one.
What happened in Bowness. The campsite beside Grade II listed Bordriggs Farmhouse, in a conservation area designated just seven weeks earlier, ran for the full 60 days. Fires on the grass in the week of the national wildfire alert. Toilets 9 metres from a neighbour’s back door. Tents left collapsed for weeks, bedding dumped at the field edge, noise at night, litter still on the grass a week after the last tent went. Residents reported it all. Nothing could be done.
And it's happening across the Park. At Troutbeck, a campsite beside two listed buildings in the conservation area. At Nibthwaite, campers and dogs in the water where otters feed. At Overwater, breeding lapwing gone from the shore since the field beside it became a campsite. Campers’ own reviews of Lake District pop-ups this summer describe music until 4am, overflowing toilets and police call-outs, with nobody on site to call.
This is NOT a ban. A petition against the Direction says it would ban pop-up campsites. It would not. Campsites can still open with planning permission, and well-run sites in sensible places will get it. What ends is the field next to someone’s home, a listed building or a lake shore opening with no one allowed to say no. Most sites may cause no problem. Where they do, the problems are serious, and an application is the only way to tell in advance which is which.
We are not against camping. We are against nobody being asked. Please sign, and please email planning@lakedistrict.gov.uk before 16 November to say you support the Direction.
What we said in August:
Imagine, right behind your back garden, a pop-up campsite in a field: up to 50 pitches, around a hundred people, and only one portaloo. The smell. The noise at midnight. The litter. And a habitat where, amongst other wildlife, red squirrels and deer have been seen, gone.
That is what we are facing in Bowness-on-Windermere, where a campsite is due to open on 15 August 2026 in a conservation area, beside a Grade II listed 17th century farmhouse. A Government Planning Inspector ruled only last year that this open land contributes positively to the setting of that historic building.
On the adjoining field, an application for holiday pods was refused in April after full assessment of drainage, protected trees, access and the setting of a listed building. The campsite next door requires no assessment of any of those things and cannot be refused.
And we are told nobody can stop it.
In 2023 the Government created a permitted development right allowing pop-up campsites of up to 50 pitches with no planning permission at all. The operator simply notifies the planning authority. There is nothing to approve and nothing to refuse: no assessment of noise, waste, drainage, wildlife or fire risk, and no consideration of the families living feet away. The Lake District National Park Authority has confirmed to us in writing that whatever it thinks of the impacts, it cannot intervene, and that this is not the only such site causing concern in the National Park.
This is happening in the Windermere catchment, where the lake's water quality is already a national scandal, and inside the Windermere Villas Conservation Area, which the Authority itself designated only in June 2026 precisely because this landscape is so special.
The Lake District is a National Park and a World Heritage Site. It is supposed to be the most protected landscape in England. If a 50-pitch campsite can appear beside people's homes here, with less scrutiny than a garden shed, the word "protected" has lost its meaning.
We are asking for two things:
The Lake District National Park Authority should make an Article 4 Direction, urgently and with immediate effect in its most sensitive areas, restoring the requirement for planning permission for temporary campsites.
The Government should amend the permitted development right to exclude National Parks and conservation areas.
We are not against camping. The Lake District welcomes campers, and Bowness alone has established, well run sites minutes away. We are against a loophole that lets anyone turn any field into an unregulated campsite beside people's homes, with no questions asked.
If it can happen here, it can happen to your field too. Please sign and share.
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Petition created on 6 August 2026