Geography GCSE Welsh board Coursework

Category: Geography, Tourism

Last Updated: 07 Jul 2020

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My main intension of my coursework is to investigate the effects of tourism, the effects of honey pot settlement and to examine the advantages and disadvantage of tourism in Bowness for instance the effects of tourism in the geographical landscape of Bowness.

I am undertaking my coursework on the subject of Bowness in Windermere which is a sprawling tourist town on the showers of Windermere. This is about halfway along the 12 mile length of the lake between Waterhead of the North end, and the lakeside at the South end.

The Lake District is the largest and the most popular National park in Britain. Over 14 million people visit the park each year most are attracted by the fine scenery, pretty villages and interesting history. It's has a pleasant specialist shop experience, with cobbled streets, ample tea rooms and pubs and with Beatrix Potter everywhere.

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A road ferry service runs across the lake from a point south of Bowness on the eastern side of the lake to Far Sawrey on the western side of the lake. For many years, power-boating and water-skiing have been popular activities on the lake.

Windermere is the largest natural lake in England, and is entirely within in the Lake District National Park. It has been one of the country's most popular places for holidays and summer homes since 1847, when the Kendal and Windermere Railway built a branch line to it. Since 'mere' means 'lake', referring to Windermere as 'Lake Windermere' is tautologous, though common.

Windermere railway station offers train and bus connections to the surrounding areas, Manchester, Manchester Airport, and the West Coast Main Line, and is about a fifteen-minute walk from the lakefront. Both Stagecoach and the local council provide frequent connecting buses from Bowness Pier; Stagecoach's open-top double-decker buses travel through the centre of town and continue to Amble side and Grasmere, while the council's wheelchair-accessible minibuses run around the edge of town.

The area has something to offer visitors at all times of the year, in all seasons. Even in the harsh winter months with its lightly snow-capped fells it offers spectacular scenery and numerous possibilities for the enthusiastic rambler. During the autumn the numerous changes of colour and the russet foliage add a note of romantic excitement in a season conventionally associated with death, decay and dreariness.

Almost a third of the land is now owned by the National Trust, whose role it is "to preserve and enhance the natural beauty of the Lake District and to ensure that people can continue to enjoy the Lake District".

Geography Coursework

History of Bowness

St Martin church of Bowness was built in 1483. When the church was enlarged the area behind the church is the oldest part of Bowness a delightful web of narrow streets known as lowside. Which gives an idea of what the villages was like before the arrival of the railway.

There's a little branch railway line, built in 1869 to serve the increasing number of tourists and connecting Ulverston to Lakeside on Windermere. This is the last remaining Furness Railway branch line. These days the line only runs from Haverthwaite, stopping at Newby Bridge and ending at Lakeside alongside Lake Windermere and most of the wide selection of diesel and steam trains connect with Windermere Lake Cruises.

Bowness-on-Windermere became a civil parish in 1894 at the same time an urban district council was formed for the town. The UDC merged with Windermere UDC in 1905 and the two civil parishes merged in 1974 under the name of Windermere. The civil parish is governed by a town council.

St. Martin's Church the parish church of Windermere, stands on a site which has been a religious foundation for over 1,000 years. The original structure was burnt down and rebuilt in 1484, and restored in 1870. The east window contains 15th century stained glass, depicting red and white stripes and three stars, the arms of John Washington who was an ancestor of George Washington, the first president of America.

The geology and topography of the land defined the first use of the locality now known as Bowness. The valley's first visitors found rich resources and sheltered wintering grounds for cattle. Because of this, the area was inhabited as a ranch in the mid 1890's. Only the railroad track and twin bridges intruded upon the pastoral landscape until the real estate boom of 1911.

Bowness-on-Windermere has more history. It began as a small fishing village and the older character of Bowness-on-Windermere can be seen in the characteristic narrow streets around St Martin's church. It was the rapid development of Windermere during the latter half of the 19th century that caused Bowness-on-Windermere and Windermere to become almost as one. Together they attract a disproportionate number of holiday makers.

The railway changed Bowness completely changed because of the railway people started to visit Bowness and before long it became a huge tourist attraction. People from all over the world come to Bowness. Now Bowness is Britain's most popular tourist attraction.

Geography Coursework

Problems of tourism

William Wordsworth lamented coming of railway and predicted that the influx of tourists would spoil the natural appeal of the lake. He was right. The railway opened the area up to all and sundry and the centuries old seclusion of the area rapidly came to an end.

The 14 million annual visitors to Lake District's national park are bound to cause problems both for the 42000 local residents and the environment. Some of the worst problems are in the honey pot areas. These are places that attract tourist in a large number and are usually very busy and congested.

Almost ï¿½500 million is spent by visitors to the Lake District every year. Over 42,000 local jobs depend on tourism, and it's now vital to the local economy. But some people fear too much tourism will destroy the natural beauty people visit the Lake District to see.

A honey pot is a particularly popular attraction within a managed tourist area, such as a national park. Examples include Bowness-on-Windermere in the Lake District. Honey pot sites are often encouraged because they concentrate the damage caused by tourists on small sites, making conservation easier in other parts of the managed area.

Attempts to manage tourism in the Lake District have become a struggle to reach agreement between a number of different interest groups, including the National Park Authority, environmentalists, the tourism industry and the charitable organization, the National Trust.

Tourism is essential to the economy of the Lake District and therefore the standard of living and quality of life of the residents of the region. It is estimated that there are about 12 million visitors to the Lake District per year; of these 10 million are day visitors, whilst 2 million stay overnight or longer. It has been estimated that within Cumbria as a whole 42000 jobs (17% of the work force) are linked to tourism, whilst in the National Park up to 50% of the workforce is employed in tourist related activities.

As well as creating direct employment tourism also supports local services, such as the bus and rail network, village shops and public houses. Without tourism many of these services would not survive and the local population would suffer as a whole, as has happened in many rural areas throughout the UK.

Whilst tourism brings benefits to the Lake District and the people who live there it also creates problems. In Lake District one of the key problems is traffic congestion and the associated problems of pollution, noise, parking and so on. It is estimated that 89% of the visitors to the Lake District arrive by car and many of these pass through Lake District. The amount of traffic passing through Lake District has steadily increased as shown in Table 1.

Problems of tourism

Year

1981

1992

1997

1999

Average number of vehicles per day

9600

13500

14600

14700

Tourism brings other problems to the Lake District too;

* damage to the natural environments

* a lack of affordable housing for local people ( It is estimated that of the nearly 23000 dwellings in the Lake District 15% of the houses are either holiday homes or second homes and in a more recent survey thirty new developments it was found that 62% of the dwellings were occupied by retired people and 11% were holiday homes or second homes) which means many young people have to leave the region to find a place to live

* a lack of well paid permanent employment (many jobs in the tourist trade are seasonal and low paid)

* a lack of services and facilities for young people and families (schools, libraries and so on)

* pollution

Lake District has a permanent population of only 2838 people - but this more than doubles in the tourist season. Tourism appears to be essential to the economy and the lives of the people of Lake District - without tourism Lake District would be just another small rural town which was struggling to survive and meet the needs of its population Tourism is both a benefit to and a problem for the people of Lake District and this is what I am going to investigating.

But perhaps the biggest problem in the area is the traffic which often chokes the narrow country roads. In the lake-side community of Lake District there has been a long-standing campaign for a bypass to relieve congestion. But environmentalists have blocked the move because of the damage they say it would cause.

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Geography GCSE Welsh board Coursework. (2017, Sep 02). Retrieved from https://phdessay.com/geography-gcse-welsh-board-coursework/

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