A LAKELAND tourism company near Penrith is planning a huge expansion of its leisure park.

Eden District Council received an application on June 26 from Leisure Resorts Ltd, which owns the Ullswater Heights Holiday Hire and Leisure Park, Flusco.

The company is seeking a “change of use of land for the siting of an additional 73 lodge style caravans, landscaping and ancillary works”.

According to the Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment: “The loss of open farmland will be low, a single field unit, existing landscape features will be retained and new areas of wildflower meadow, new native hedgerows and woodland planting typical of the area would help assimilate the built form of development into the landscape and make a positive contribution to landscape character.”

It adds: “Holiday parks of this nature are an established component of the landscape character of the area and will therefore not be out of keeping with the character.

“The site occupies part of a landscape character area of moderate sensitivity but the magnitude of change would be low and we conclude that overall, whilst there might be a low adverse initial effect there will be a negligible direct residual effect on the landscape character.

“The embedded mitigation in the site layout, including the layout itself, landscape planting and external finish of built forms, will ultimately result in residual a minor beneficial on landscape character outside the National Park, by virtue of increased tree cover and habitat and biodiversity improvements.”

The holiday park opened on July 1 last year, with 150 pitches which included lodges for ownership and rental.

It was the latest park to be opened by Leisure Resorts, a five-star holiday resort operator founded just over three years ago by Gary Molloy, the founder and former owner of Park Leisure.

A consultation period for the proposal will end on August 1.

For information on the application go online to plansearch.eden.gov.uk quoting application reference 20/0424.