Dozens of cars were left covered in slurry at a busy Lake District beauty spot after visitors parked on a field off the A591 near Rydal Water during the bank holiday weekend. A video shared with the showed the vehicles lined up on the ground and coated in muck.

The scene landed in a national park where parking has been a long-standing problem, and where the strain is worse on weekends and school holidays. Cumbria Police responded by reminding visitors to park considerately and said parking should follow the highway code and be in a place that does not block other drivers, especially emergency services vehicles.

For John Atkinson, the latest parking row was more than an irritation. A few years ago, he said, he was stabbed in the chest when he confronted a motorist who was causing an obstruction. “He didn't even talk to me, I tapped on his window and he jumped out and stabbed me,” he said. “He broke one of my ribs, but luckily it didn't penetrate my chest.”

Atkinson said the incident was a “freak” one, but it showed how fast anger can rise when parking blocks roads and access. “It was absolutely horrendous, I've seen it worse, but not much worse,” he said. He added that during the bank holiday weekend the area was so busy with day-trippers and visitors that he would not have been able to move his tractor at all.

His criticism was not aimed only at people living nearby. Atkinson said inconsiderate parking caused delays and frustration for all road users, not just farmers. “If we went down to Manchester and parked anywhere we wanted, we'd get towed away,” he said. “It just seems like people disengage their brains when they come to the countryside.”

The Lake District has long wrestled with the problem of where to leave cars when popular spots fill up. That pressure builds at exactly the times when the park is busiest, and the sight of dozens of vehicles left in slurry near Rydal Water showed how quickly a familiar access issue can turn into a flashpoint for anger, blockage and risk. The next challenge for the park is not whether visitors will keep coming. It is whether they can be made to leave their cars in places that keep the roads open.