A Lot Less Bovver Than A Sheep

Lake District preservation organisation 'Friends of the Fells' is appealing to walkers, climbers and mountain bikers to stockpile lawnmowers as part of a radical new conservation scheme.

'In the event of the Herdwick sheep being culled,' says FoF spokesman Arturo Pinguino, 'the Lakes will revert to scrubland within years. This scheme could be the only hope of keeping the area as it is.'

The idea is that groups and individuals will be able to adopt areas of high fell which they will then be responsible for tending and mowing on a regular basis, rather like the old adopt a trig point scheme. Pinguino is keen to stress that the commitment is relatively small:

'All we're asking is that outdoors people give up a couple of weekends a year to maintain their own small patch of the Lake District. It won't be necessary to weed or anything like that and Wimbledon-style stripes would be inappropriate.'

The organisation has already drawn up provisional plans with the local electricity board to introduce a network of hidden power lines and sunken, invisible sockets across the fells. The infrastructure would take several years to put in place, but once established would remove the need to use invasive petrol-driven mowers in the outdoors.

The project is already being taken seriously by lawnmower manufacturers. A Qualcast spokesperson told OUTDOORSmagic that the company is working on what they call 'Project Helvellyn', an adaptation of one of their existing hovver mowers aimed at producing a machine with adjustable camber.

'The Helvellyn will enable mowers to traverse slopes of up to 60-degrees while still achieving a close, consistent cut. In trials we've found that cutting up and down the slope is simply too exhausting for most people and can actually be dangerous. In one trial a Qualcast tester found himself in Goats Water after losing control of the mower high on the Old Man of Coniston.'

Flymo are believed to be working on a similar project, but were reluctant to comment given the potential market for the revised mowers. Sheep dogs were not amused. More news when we have it.