TOURISM businesses have condemned Network Rail’s decision to shut much of Cumbria’s rail network over the bank holiday weekend.

Buses replace trains between Lancaster and Glasgow/Edinburgh, on the Windermere branch line, and between Carlisle and Maryport on the Cumbrian Coast line. Meanwhile a long-term closure applies between Carlisle and Appleby on the Carlisle-Leeds route because of a landslip near Armathwaite.

Network Rail says it is carrying out work over three days this weekend because "bank holidays are typically much quieter times".

Full details of the engineering work can be found here .

Nigel Wilkinson, managing director of Windermere Lake Cruises and chairman of the Lake District National Park Partnership's Business Task Force, said that the scheduling of the work demonstrated a lack of understanding of Cumbria’s economy.

He added: “This is a serious issue and, while I am sympathetic to Network Rail, I do wonder whether they have considered if the work needed to be done at this time.

“The value of the visitor economy to Cumbria is £2.6bn and supports the equivalent of 35,000 jobs, and a functioning rail system at key times such as school and bank holidays is essential to the region’s success.

“It’s a very different proposal here than in a city, where business and commuter trains have to be prioritised but here tourism trade is core to what we do.

“It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, if people have the perception that we’re only operating a weekday rail service then they will start to look into other means of transport or other destinations.”

Jeanette Edgar, director of marketing and communications at Lakeland Arts, also thought that the closures represented a lack of planning.

She said: “It’s ludicrous. While it’s difficult to properly assess how many ticket sales are lost as a result of work like this, we are always aiming our bigger events at the school and bank holiday times.

“It’s very unfortunate when you’re drawing advertising plans up to get people to come into the Lake District from further afield, places such as Manchester, Liverpool and London that have great train links, only for something like this to happen.

“It’s hard when you are running an attraction in these areas and often you do have to rely on people with cars to find you, but by cancelling the trains you are literally forcing people onto the roads.

“It’s just a shame and a lack of joined up thinking, we’ve just opened a road and now we’re closing the railway on a bank holiday.”

Adrian Moore, head of operations and marketing at Tullie House Museum in Carlisle, said that the bank holiday closures were “worrying”.

He added: “The difficulty we have at the moment is that we don’t know exactly what impact these train closures so it is too early to tell specifically.

“But anything that impacts on our ticket sales is going to make us worse off and and reduce the number of people accessing our collections and exhibitions.

“News such as this is likely to deter people from coming because of longer journey times.”