682 



CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 



No steps had been taken to promote a scheme for the northern part until 

 February 14, 1928, when he submitted a scheme to the Whitehaven Rotary Club. 

 An informal committee was formed on May 5, with Sir John Randies as chairman. 

 The matter was taken up by the Cumberland County Council on May 23, and their 

 Parliamentary Committee held a successful county conference on July 17. Resolutions 

 were then passed constituting a Regional Planning Committee for the whole coimty 

 (together with the City of Carlisle and a portion of Westmorland) and agreeing to 

 the expenditure of a rate not exceeding one-tenth of a penny in the £. Those 

 resolutions now awaited confirmation by the twenty-four local authorities in the 

 county. 



As originally proposed, the Lake District (North) Region would have comprised 

 the urban districts of Keswick, MUlom, Shap, parts of the rural districts of Bootle, 

 Cockermouth, Penrith, Whitehaven, Wigton, and tlie West Ward of Westmorland. 

 It embraced ten lakes : Wastwater, Ennerdale, Loweswater, Crummock, Buttermere, 

 Bassenthwaite, Derwentwater, Thirlmere, Ullswater and Haweswater, and most of 

 the great mountain groups. The area was 385,423 acres ; population 34,119 : 

 assessable value £341,431. 



By bringing in the whole county the comparative figures became : — 



The success of that conference must not be taken too optimistically. The 

 resolutions had stUl to be confirmed by the respective councils, one had already 

 turned the scheme down, and others had deferred consideration, mainly on the score 

 of expense. 



The southern Lakeland scheme had provided for a maximum expenditure of a 

 fifth of a penny in the £ for three years. With the areas now contributing this 

 would produce £195 per annum, a total of £585. The necessary survey was costing 

 £390. 



On the same basis the survey for northern Lakeland would have cost £800, and to 

 leave a margin for organisation expenses, £1,000 would have been required, to produce 

 which a rate of Jd. in the £ for three years would have been required. With the far 

 greater rateable value rendered available by the extension of the scheme to the whole 

 county and the City of Carlisle, it was estimated that a rate of one-tenth of a penny 

 in the £ for three years would be sufficient. This would produce (allowing for possible 

 fall in assessment to £1,300,000) £540 a year, or a total of £1,620, which should be 

 ample for the purpose. The tenth of a penny rate for three years was a final payment 

 for the Regional Planning Scheme, which did not necessarily involve any further 

 expenditure for purchase of land, compensation, public works, or legal or adminis- 

 trative expenses. For that sum the County would secure an exhaustive survey of 

 its resources, needs, and possibilities, not only as regarded preservation of amenities, 

 but also as regarded roads, housing, public services and industrial developments. 



Detailed plaiming should be left to the committee, but one or two suggestions 

 might not be out of place. Improved access to west and south-west of the Lake 

 District by road or rail was desirable ; external circumferential roads might be permitted, 

 but through roads should be resisted, for the Lake District could only be thoroughly 

 appreciated by those who walked through it and climbed its hills. 



A National Lake District Defence Fund should be opened with a guarantee fund 

 of a substantial amount. This would be utiUsed for necessary compensation and 

 purchase of land where the regional and subsequent town planning schemes showed 

 this to be necessary. 



On the motion of the President it was agreed that the Conference of 

 Delegates should express sympathetic interest in the effort to prepare a 



