After tracking The Westmorland Gazette's campaign to save the Lake District's free guided walks, an outdoor clothing company has dug deep and come up with the cash to secure their future.

Just days before the authority was due to decide the fate of its popular events programme, Hawkshead came forward with the £38,000 needed to safeguard the walks this year.

Hawkshead spokesman Michael Saxton said the company had followed The Westmorland Gazette's five-week-long Save The Walks' campaign coverage.

"As a Lakeland company we take interest in local issues and we have a long track record of supporting the Lakes - we have supported the Upland Paths Landscape Restoration Project and the Weatherline project. The ranger-led walks are enjoyed by thousands of visitors and we wanted to enable people to keep enjoying them."

In December, the Lake District National Park Authority recommended members scrap the 900-strong events programme, which it said only attracted white middle class and middle aged people, in a bid to attract more ethnic minorities, urban youth and disabled people.

At a special meeting on Monday, when the authority announced it faced a £900,000 deficit by 2007/8 that would involve redundancies, members accepted the sponsorship but dubbed the handling of the matter a "PR disaster".

Maureen Colquhoun said she felt "ashamed" to be an LDNPA member.

"We have been rescued by an outside sponsor and it should never have come to that. The whole guided walks matter has been mishandled. It has been extremely insensitive to wardens and TIC staff," she said. "The first ethic of this national park is walking. The national park is about quiet enjoyment and the 4,500 people who went on the walks are the most valuable minority in England."

LDNPA member Peter Phizacklea branded the situation a "PR disaster" adding: "Unfortunately the people we want to attract are being given the message they are the ones stopping these walks. Nothing could be further from the truth."

But David Thomas disagreed, saying officers had suffered "actionable" abuse and urged fellow members to stop making them the "bad guys". Ian Hall accused members of "hand washing."

Meanwhile, jubilant voluntary rangers, who packed out the meeting, said the authority had been "bailed out."

"We were jumping for joy when we heard the decision it's what we have been fighting for, we just didn't want to lose the walks," said volunteer ranger Derek Tunstall.

"But they (the LDNPA) have been bailed out by us fighting and getting it into the papers."

LDNPA's corporate communications director Emma Dewhurst thanked Hawkshead and said members and officers would be working hard to get the event programme together for Easter.

Meanwhile, LDNPA corporate finance director Kerry Powell insisted there was no "financial crisis" but admitted the authority faced "difficult financial times".

"We must take action to reduce our costs and we must increase our additional income. The scale of the situation is redundancies are likely."

This week the authority announced it was to close information centres at Seatoller, Waterhead and Pooley Bridge, while a fuller review of all centres took place. Six staff would be reemployed at other centres.

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