Sir, So once again the Friends of the Lake District have decided that as they do not like a particular scheme they will find any and all means at their disposal to block it.

Have they no consideration for the people who are affected by their antiquated ideas as to what the Lake District and surrounding area should be like?

In your article ‘Bypass go-ahead may face legal challenge’ on October 31, it is reported that after 25 years the people of High and Low Newton may once again have a quiet peaceful village to live in and the residents of Ulverston, Barrow and further round the coast will have a shorter journey to the motorway. The fact that this road will also save lives seems to have been by missed FOLD.

Friends of the Lake District have a membership of 7,000 - this represents about 15 per cent of the entire population of the Lake District. When will they realise they do not represent the majority of people who live and work, as I do, in the Lake District?

They were instrumental in bringing about the 10mph speed limit ban on Windermere and are trying to ban off-road vehicles. Now it seems they want to ban any developmental growth in some of the peripheral parts of Cumbria.

This bypass is vital if this part of the country is to develop and grow as an industrial or tourist area. With a history such as the Furness Peninsulars have, it is important that investment is allowed into the area.

After FOLD have blocked this plan I can see them blocking any plan to make a road link across Morecambe Bay and so adding another nail to the coffin of this area.

Inevitably the number of cars to the South Lakes area will increase and I do not want to see vast areas of this beautiful part of the world lost to an ever-increasing amount of concrete, but I do ask the Friends of the Lake District to reconsider their appeal to this proposal and actually listen to what the local people want. That way a more sustainable approach to transport will be found for this county.

Mr N. O’Loughlin Kendal.

n Sir, Jack Ellerby, of Friends of the Lake District, commented that the granting of planning permission for the Newton Bypass, (all two and a half miles of it!), has “relegated the Lake District landscape to the dustbin!” (The Westmorland Gazette, October 31, ‘Bypass go-ahead may face legal challenge’). Oh, come on!

I have been “a friend” of the Lake District for 60 years; I am in favour of peace, green or otherwise, have marched, protested, and even (very 50’s this), squatted in Trafalgar Square for some cause or other.

What I have never been, however, is a fanatic, and the comments from FOLD and its servant are fanatical and dogmatic to boot.

Such people used to parade up and down town centres with bill-boards over their shoulders, saying “The End is Nigh”! Today they are part of the object-to-everything industry on the grounds that any change is, by their definition, wrong for somebody, environmentally damaging and may make you fat.

The ludicrous thing is that they are always, but always, wrong. For example, “Motorways always ruin the countryside”. Wrong - the most prolific wildlife around is found on the verges of motorways.

“Oil tanker spillages damage the environment beyond repair”. Rubbish - three years after any oil spill, the seas are thriving. “Fossil fuel will run out by 2000”. It didn’t and won’t for many years.

The thing that Mr. Ellerby and all those other commentators have in common is that they overstate their case and by the use of ludicrous hyperbole lose the sympathy and interest of their audiences.

The Lake District will not be consigned to any dustbin by a paltry two and a half mile road; any disturbed wildlife will rapidly adjust and thrive if past experience is a guide, but above all, the human lives in Newton will be vastly improved by the absence of danger, the reduction in noise and - dare I mention it - the eight lives which the Highways Agency estimate will be saved.

Get real Mr Ellerby.

Robert Nelson Lindale-in-Cartmel