Illegal wild campers are descending on the Lake District for parties before fly tipping and scorching the earth with BBQs leaving locals to clear up the mess.<br /><br />Parties are venturing into the national park for a night or two of camping, drinking and eating outdoors.<br /><br />The Lake District National Park Authority insists that wild camping is “not technically permitted anywhere in the Lake District” without permission from private landowners.<br /><br />But those who live nearby have become fed up with the ‘fly campers’ ditching all their rubbish. <br /><br />Kate Appleby, 31, from Kendal, Cumbria, spends a day every week cleaning up after fly campers and has noticed a worrying rise in the trend. <br /><br />She said: “It looks like a festival. <br /><br />“There was always an element of littering and antisocial behaviour but since the pandemic it has been on an unmanageable scale.”<br /><br />Kate, who is a scientific management consultant, is concerned about the environmental, visual and health impacts of the litter and fires.<br /> <br />She said: “People don't understand the damage - they think people are paid to go and clean up. <br /><br />“People don’t care, I think they have lost the connection with the outdoors - you would not litter like this in your own garden.”<br /><br />Kate came across a group of teenagers wild camping at Blea Tarn a fortnight ago and asked them to clean up the litter strewn around their tents. <br /><br />They refused and the rubbish remained after they had left. <br /><br />When she posted a video to Instagram detailing the encounter, Kate received “abuse and trolling online” but was unperturbed. <br /><br />Last weekend, in the dells near Ambleside, Kate was alerted by a friend to another site of fly camping. <br /><br />Together with a friend, Kate filled four rubble sacks, two 65l rucksacks and two carrier bags with the detritus left behind by wild campers. <br /><br />There were tents, camp shares, a double mattress, more than 40 glass and plastic bottles, and two fires which had melted glass. <br /><br />She said: “They have had to take it uphill for at least two miles so they could have definitely taken it back down.”<br /><br />Taking to Instagram afterwards, Kate said: “I know we’re not all privileged enough to access the same levels of education and information - but this is beyond that, beyond even a basic understanding of the countryside code, this is basic dignity and respect.”<br /><br />Kate said she had confronted local kids and groups of men in their twenties before, but the majority of fly campers tended to come from further afield.<br /><br />Kate is chronically ill with lupus, postural tachycardia syndrome (PoTS) and Hashimoto’s disease. <br /><br />She said: “I found the outdoors as a way of therapy and peace.”<br /><br />Kate does not want to promote "gatekeeping" of the countryside, but rather encourage an emotional connection to the landscape born out of respect.<br /><br />To clampdown on fly camping, Kate believes there should be tougher fines and more patrols.<br /><br />She said: “Police don’t have the resources and it is a tricky one for who takes responsibility."
