Lake District nominated for world heritage status

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/09/lake-district-nominated-world-heritage-status-unesco

Version 0 of 1.

The Lake District is to be nominated for world heritage status. England's largest national park will be able to submit a bid to UN heritage body Unesco in 2016, Ed Vaizey, the culture minister, has said.

If it secures world heritage status, it will join Australia's Great Barrier Reef, the Great Wall of China and the Grand Canyon in the US as sites with outstanding value to the world.

The UK already has almost 30 cultural and natural sites on the world heritage List, ranging from the Tower of London to the Giant's Causeway and Stonehenge. Globally, almost 1,000 sites are listed for their heritage value.

Vaizey said: "The UK's heritage is world-renowned and the Lake District, England's largest national park, is one of our heritage jewels.

"The Unesco nomination process can be very demanding and success is not guaranteed, but I believe the Lake District deserves to be recognised and inscribed as a world heritage site and I wish all involved the very best."

The Lake District was one of six sites put forward for consideration for nomination by an independent expert group.

The others were Chatham Dockyard and its defences, Flow Country, Jodrell Bank observatory, the Zenith of Iron Age Shetland and the twin monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow.

The Lake District joins the Forth bridge near Edinburgh and Gorham's Cave complex in Gibraltar on the UK's tentative list of potential future nominations. The Forth bridge is being put forward this year, and Gorham's Cave complex in 2015.

Mike Innerdale, assistant director of operation for National Trust (north-west), which looks after a fifth of the countryside, hills and rivers in the Lake District, welcomed confirmation that the national park would be the next nomination.

"The National Trust has cared for the natural heritage of the Lake District for 100 years and this is a brilliant opportunity to share these special spaces with an international audience," he said.

The long-running bid to secure world heritage status for the national park stretches back to the 1980s.

Richard Leafe, its chief executive , said: "World heritage inscription will boost the international profile of the Lake District's unique awe-inspiring landscape, which has evolved over thousands of years."

The nomination will go through an 18-month process of scrutiny and evaluation by Unesco and its advisory body, the International Council on Monuments and Sites, with a decision expected in July 2017.

Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning.