While knocking on doors in Elterwater’s in the 1980s, Dr David Jarratt realised that very few locals lived in the Lake District village. Back then Dr Jarratt was a teenager but he had a strong sense of change on the horizon. He said: “I did an A-Level project looking at how many homes belonged to locals and how many were holiday or second homes.
Back then it was roughly half, but now it would be the majority.” As Dr Jarratt’s title suggests, that survey was just the start of a fascination with the impact visitors have on places like Cumbria. His childhood interest has now become an important academic career.
Now a senior lecturer in tourism at the University of Central Lancashire, Dr Jarratt looks at the trend of emptying homes in Elterwater on a professional level. Being a native of the area he bring a person connection to his research, the Express reports. There are real fears that the area of the North West made famous by Romantic poet William Wordsworth post-pandemic could become a series of ghost towns with only tourists as occupants.
Since the pandemic many who have had the means have shifted their lives completely to rural areas, choosing to work from home. From across the country, outsiders flocked to Cumbria in even greater numbers squeezing an already limited supply of housing further still. As property prices in the Lake District skyrocketed in the summer of 2021, local MP and Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron claimed a “Lakeland clearance” was under w.