Cumbria

George Monbiot doesn't think it'll be very helpful for the environment as it'll just reinforce the current culture of overgrazing.

theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/11/lake-district-world-heritage-site-sheep

It makes you start wondering what WHS is for. I don't see it protecting the Stonehenge landscape against the putative tunnel / highway? Though I see they've Said Something. But can they insist? Or do they just threaten to take away its status if the govt insist on doing it over?

I visited the Pont du Gard recently, which also got WH status a few years back. When you look at the structure in its setting, you say "rightly so", but then look at the new tourist infrastructure which it has funded close-by and you understand it's just the organisations who run these places shuffling money and resources around to facilitate more tourism. The visitor centre there is a MASTERPIECE of audio-visual display on a huge scale, but did the world have nothing better to do..........the reason for going is the f*****g viaduct in its natural setting. A toilet block at the car park would have been fine - there's already one on the opposite river bank.

In the case of the Lakes, this is about the ongoing journey for The National Trust and the National Park Authority.......end of!

Monbiot's travails as to the problem of getting information from various bodies.

"So yes, people – and their dogs – are “free to write to express their concerns about World Heritage Sites”. And we are free to be ignored, fobbed off and funnelled into a farcical bureaucratic roundabout.

This is how UNESCO operates. There are no formal channels for public engagement, no established means of challenging misrepresentations and falsehoods, no accountability, no transparency, no concessions to anything resembling democratic legitimacy. So it leads me to ask, on whose behalf does it operate?"

monbiot.com/2017/07/11/black-box/

A slightly different outlook on making the Lake District a Heritage Site. The difference is of course the blurb on the tourist leaflet and the actuality of living in a far from pristine environment with low paid jobs and expensive housing.....

haveabitofclass.wordpress.com/2017/07/17/whose-heritage/