Economy
Tourism is the major local employment for Park residents (24%), with manufacturing industries (19%) and quarrying (12%) also being important; only 12% are employed in agriculture. The cement works at Hope is the largest single employer within the Park. Tourism is estimated to provide 500 full-time jobs, 350 part-time jobs and 100 seasonal jobs.
Limestone is the most important mineral quarried, mainly for roads and cement; shale is extracted for cement at Hope, and several gritstone quarries are worked for housing. Lead mining is no longer economic, but fluorite, baryte and calcite are extracted from lead veins, and small-scale Blue John mining occurs at Castleton.
The springs at Buxton and Ashbourne are exploited to produce bottled mineral water, and many of the plantations are managed for timber. Other manufacturing industries of the area are varied; they include David Mellor's cutlery factory in Hathersage, Ferodo brake linings in Chapel-en-le-Frith and electronic equipment in Castleton. There are approximately 2,700 farms in the National Park, most of them under 40 hectares (99 acres) in area. 60% of farms are believed to be run on a part-time basis where the farmer has a second job.
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Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“Unaware of the absurdity of it, we introduce our own petty household rules into the economy of the universe for which the life of generations, peoples, of entire planets, has no importance in relation to the general development.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The basis of political economy is non-interference. The only safe rule is found in the self-adjusting meter of demand and supply. Do not legislate. Meddle, and you snap the sinews with your sumptuary laws.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)