Charging tourists to visit the Peak District could be the solution to "unprecedented" financial woes, according to the leader of the authority running the national park.
The Peak District National Park Authority, based in Bakewell in Derbyshire, says it has had a 50% real terms funding cut over the last decade, while grappling with issues like wildfires and dangerous parking.
But chief executive Phil Mulligan said it "wouldn't need any government funding" if it could charge 10p per visitor.
A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said it was providing national parks with a capital uplift of £15m.
The Peak District became the UK's first national park around 75 years ago and is a major tourist attraction, welcoming about 13 million visitors every year.
Pressures due to a fixed government grant that has not accounted for inflation or other costs, such as the rise in the minimum wage, have been blamed for the authority's financial troubles.
Speaking to Politics East Midlands, Mr Mulligan said: "We have the pressure of visitors, we have the pressure of delivering for the nation in terms of the ecological crisis – the climate crisis.
"I'm trying to do that with an ever-declining set of government funds, at a time when what's being asked of the national park is more and more.
"I think that [charging tourists fees] is a big discussion that government is going to need to have.
"But what would be the mechanism for that? I haven't got the powers."
