Can this 1,000 acre wasteland be West Cumbria’s key to the future?
Last updated 13:06, Wednesday, 01 October 2008
THE VAST wasteland looks like the film set for a post-nuclear holocaust thriller.
More than 300 hundred abandoned bunkers and munition stores dot a bleak landscape overgrown with gorse, nettles and reeds.
But this is no film set. It is site of one of the most ambitious regeneration projects in the history of West Cumbria.
At more than 1,000 acres, an area about the size of Cockermouth, Derwent Forest is believed to be the biggest brown field site in the north of England.
The deserted former munitions depot, known locally as the Dump, has been virtually untouched since the Gulf War, when it was used as an armaments store by the US Navy.
The upland areas command impressive views of the western fells, including Skiddaw and Lorton Valley.
The site has been closed to the public for more than 50 years, frozen in a Cold War time warp.
Since then the land, bought last month from the Ministry of Defence for the bargain price of £1 by Allerdale and Cumbria councils, has been reclaimed by nature.
It is now home to bats, raptors, badgers and foxes.
It is difficult to imagine hotels, golf courses and luxury spas in this vast and inhospitable place but these are just some of the plans that Allerdale and Cumbria councils have in store for the site.
The two councils will be working with Northwest Development Agency, Cumbria Vision and West Lakes Renaissance to attract investors.
As we cross Broughton Moor, the sheer scale of the project undertaken soon becomes clear.
Director of partnership and community for Allerdale council, David Martin is under no illusion about the gargantuan task that faces the developers.
He said: “It’s going to be a long-term project that could take between 10 and 15 years. We do need to advise people that it is not going to be a quick fix.”
Mr Martin points to an unpromising stretch of rough land covered in thistles.
He said: “That open space could have some sort of open air activity such as a golf course.”
As he talks, a barn owl flits past soundlessly and disappears into the gloom of an old munitions store - a reminder that developers must achieve a fine balance between conservation and progress.
The site’s derelict buildings are an important habitat for nine species of bat, all of which are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act.
Developers are trying to coax the bats out before the clean-up operation begins and have provided them with alternative accommodation in the form of nesting boxes fixed to the side of trees.
We are among the few civilians allowed to set foot on the site since it was vacated by the MoD in 1992.
Despite hazards including broken glass, asbestos roof sheets and unstable spoil heaps, hunters lured by the promise of rich game continue to trespass on the land.
Many uses have been suggested for Derwent Forest but looking around at the ghost towns - once a hive of military activity - I still believe this would make an excellent setting for a film.
