It was while knocking on the doors of Elterwater’s grey stone cottages in the 1980s that it first dawned on Dr David Jarratt just how few locals were living in the Lake District village.

He was only a teenager at the time, but he could feel it; the fabric of the place was changing.

“I did an A-Level project looking at how many homes belonged to locals and how many were holiday or second homes,” he said. “Back then it was roughly half, but now it would be the majority.”

As Dr Jarratt’s title suggests, that survey was just the start of a fascination with the impact visitors have on places like Cumbria which ended up blossoming into an academic career.

Now a senior lecturer in tourism at the University of Central Lancashire, he looks at the trend of emptying homes in Elterwater on a professional level.

Being a native of the Lake District, he also brings personal experience to the topic.

Fears the area of the North West made famous by the Romantic poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge could become a series of ghost towns only occupied by tourists have been growing with intensity post-pandemic.

The revolution in working practices brought about by Covid-19 has enabled those with the means to relocate to rural areas the ability to make it happen as home-working was embraced by so many businesses.

From across the country outsiders flocked to Cumbria in even greater numbers squeezing an already limited supply of housing further still.

As property prices in the Lake District skyrocketed in the summer of 2021, local MP and Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron claimed a “Lakeland clearance” was under way.

“The increasing proportion of homes in the second-home or holiday-let market means no permanent population,” he told ITV News.

“No permanent population means no kids at the local school, so the school closes. It means the loss of the post office, the pub and bus services.

“We end up with beautiful places that are empty.”

When the Express asked Dr Jarrett where in the Lake District might have become the ghost town Farron warned of he immediately thought of Elterwater.

Just as the MP described, the village has lost its local post office and had its village shop replaced by a cafe focused on non-local clientele.

The stunning spot in the Langdale Valley is still enjoyed but, increasingly, it is visitors from a large hotel and holiday cottages taking in the scenery.

“You’ve got a big hotel called the Langdale Hotel and that’s probably got more staff living in than in the community outside of the hotel,” Dr Jarrett added.

“The [overall] hotel population is bigger than the local population.”

The academic pointed out that having a large hotel was not necessarily a bad thing; they often provide employment and opportunities for local people.

But a lack of access to housing within a reasonable distance of these economic drivers means it is challenging for both employers and staff who didn’t live on-site to reap the benefits.

The problem, highlighted by Dr Jarrett, is not tourism itself but the sustainability of the model that has developed over the past half-century in the Lakes.

“I grew up in a place called Hawkshead,” he continued. “My parents were teachers and I managed to get a house [something people in the same situation] wouldn’t be able to do today.

“I remember it being busy in the summer with lots of people camping. When I was a teenager I’d go out into the pubs in the village and it would be really good fun. There was a real buzz.

“Although it was a tourism place, at least half the houses in the village were populated by local people.

“Now it feels very different. There are a lot more holiday homes and certainly less local people that have been there for a long time with family connections.

“The campers aren’t even there any more. What you’ve got now are people doing glamping or staying at Airbnbs.”

It’s not just the type of accommodation hosting visitors that has change as Dr Jarrett explained the brand of the Lake District has expanded the range of visitors to the region considerably.

“The market has changed, it’s more national,” he added. “People are coming from not just the North-West but all over the UK and, of course, you’ve got the international market, although that is slightly different because they can stay in hotels and guesthouses.

“The feel of these villages has changed in my experience, although I admit I’m being nostalgic there’s no doubt about the intensity of it.

“But I think the one thing that jumps out is the fact that people are renting what were once private houses.”