Читать книгу Britain: The Lake District - Vivienne Crow - Страница 26

With millions of people visiting the Lake District every year and other parts of the county seeing more and more visitors too, tourism plays a huge role in the economy of modern-day Cumbria. Employing around 30 per cent of the total workforce (that’s about 35,000 people), it contributes almost £1.2 billion to the county’s coffers every year. The value of tourism has grown by 32 per cent since 1992 (£812 million) and is forecast to grow to £1.5 billion in real terms by 2018.

Manufacturing employs 17 per cent of the county’s workforce, compared with 11 per cent nationally – a surprising statistic in an area best known for its rural nature. This includes the defence industry in Barrow-in-Furness (mostly BAE Systems); food processing, largely in Carlisle; and the nuclear industry. Outside of the public sector, the latter, centred on the Sellafield reprocessing plant in west Cumbria, is the county’s single biggest employer. And, with tentative plans to build nuclear power stations in the county in the not-so-distant future, the numbers involved are set to grow.

Although it employs less than 1.5 per cent of the workforce, and even that figure is declining, agriculture remains an important element of all things Cumbrian. The Borderway mart in Carlisle is one of the busiest livestock sales centres in the UK, and the county’s dairy sector is one of the largest in the country. With a vast proportion of Cumbria’s landmass given over to agriculture, no visitor can fail to be aware of its influence.