Park hopes that festival can be movable feast

David Butterworth told the Yorkshire Post the Walk For All Festival had been the biggest new event in the Dales for years, and he was planning talks with the Jane Tomlinson Appeal to see if it could be replicated in other areas.

“I really hope this will take off as an annual event and I’m sure it will,” he said. “I want to see it taking place in other parts of the national park although I do appreciate the logistical difficulties with that.

“There are 680 miles of magnificent upland scenery here. The idea of the festival moving around would be brilliant.

“Anything I can do to help this I will.”

The YDNPA has worked closely with the Jane Tomlinson Appeal throughout the planning of the festival, with rangers designing special sustainable routes to take the pressure off the famous three peaks, Whernside, Ingleborough and Penyghent, which are scaled by hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.

Mr Butterworth added: “It is the biggest event we have done here for a long time.

“What is so pleasing is some of the issues we have got with the damage that has been caused by other charity events is not the case here.

“It is just fantastic how people have been captivated by this and got on board. It has been absolutely brilliant for the national park authority and really inspirational.

“So much of my job deals with tricky different conservation and community issues and to actually see something like this in the national park is incredible.”