Illegal wild campers are descending on the Lake District for parties before fly tipping and scorching the earth with BBQs leaving locals to clear up the mess.

Parties are venturing into the national park for a night or two of camping, drinking and eating outdoors.

The Lake District National Park Authority insists that wild camping is “not technically permitted anywhere in the Lake District” without permission from private landowners.

But those who live nearby have become fed up with the ‘fly campers’ ditching all their rubbish.

Kate Appleby, 31, from Kendal, Cumbria, spends a day every week cleaning up after fly campers and has noticed a worrying rise in the trend.

She said: “It looks like a festival.

“There was always an element of littering and antisocial behaviour but since the pandemic it has been on an unmanageable scale.”

Kate, who is a scientific management consultant, is concerned about the environmental, visual and health impacts of the litter and fires.

She said: “People don't understand the damage - they think people are paid to go and clean up.

“People don’t care, I think they have lost the connection with the outdoors - you would not litter like this in your own garden.”

Kate came across a group of teenagers wild camping at Blea Tarn a fortnight ago and asked them to clean up the litter strewn around their tents.

They refused and the rubbish remained after they had left.

When she posted a video to Instagram detailing the encounter, Kate received “abuse and trolling online” but was unperturbed.

Last weekend, in the dells near Ambleside, Kate was alerted by a friend to another site of fly camping.

Together with a friend, Kate filled four rubble sacks, two 65l rucksacks and two carrier bags with the detritus left behind by wild campers.

There were tents, camp shares, a double mattress, more than 40 glass and plastic bottles, and two fires which had melted glass.

She said: “They have had to take it uphill for at least two miles so they could have definitely taken it back down.”

Taking to Instagram afterwards, Kate said: “I know we’re not all privileged enough to access the same levels of education and information - but this is beyond that, beyond even a basic understanding of the countryside code, this is basic dignity and respect.”

Kate said she had confronted local kids and groups of men in their twenties before, but the majority of fly campers tended to come from further afield.

Kate is chronically ill with lupus, postural tachycardia syndrome (PoTS) and Hashimoto’s disease.

She said: “I found the outdoors as a way of therapy and peace.”

Kate does not want to promote "gatekeeping" of the countryside, but rather encourage an emotional connection to the landscape born out of respect.

To clampdown on fly camping, Kate believes there should be tougher fines and more patrols.

She said: “Police don’t have the resources and it is a tricky one for who takes responsibility."