We are most concerned at the ideas being put forward in the present Consultation Document, under the banner of the Snowdonia Green Key proposals,. We feel that, should they come to fruition, they will 

seriously limit our personal  freedoms within the area,

1. make the chosen pastimes of mountaineers, walkers, climbers, fell-runners (and many others) considerably more inconvenient to undertake,

2. have an adverse effect upon the safety of ‘mountain users’ within the core area,

3. have a seriously detrimental effect upon the economies of a number of businesses within the area.

Let us look at each of these concerns in turn, with some specific reasoning:

Limitation of personal freedoms

• We are concerned that the proposals to run a timetabled bus service throughout a large part of the Snowdonia National Park represents an attempt to ‘urbanise’ the movement of people in the area. This may not be the stated aim, but that will be the impression to the visitor.

• Many people who visit the National Parks, for whatever reason, do so as part of their desire to get away from the daily routines of travelling to and from work; living according to someone else’s timetable and schedule of the day. They want to escape this, if only for a few hours, or maybe a couple of days, and have the freedom to choose where they go, and when.

• To do so, they have the freedom of their own transport. Or they have at the moment. If your proposals are accepted, they will be required to park in organised lines, be watched over by security cameras, wait for buses that may (or may not) arrive when they say, listen to or see ‘ICT or Interactive Technology’, and so on.

Inconvenience to visitors

• From the point of view of climbers, walkers, fell-runners etc, the flexibility provided by their own vehicles is a fundamental part of practising their pastime in the mountains. We can take a number of pieces of equipment with us, and then leave any unnecessary items in the valley, when route choice changes or conditions on the hill are different to that which we expected. This will be impossible if forced to travel by bus, as there will be no place to leave surplus kit in safety.

• Many times, whether travelling for a day trip or for a weekend camping or hut meeting, this club’s members have made use of the fact that there are (limited) parking facilities at a great many scattered locations throughout the Park area. It has allowed a change of clothing to be left in the car, ready for the return of the climbers at the end of a long, sometimes wet, day. It has allowed ‘unusual’ routes to be climbed or walked, simply because transport is easy to arrange. If you concentrate visitors at specific drop-off/pick-up points, the erosion of mountain paths will be concentrated around those areas too.

• A typical club weekend will involve up to 15 members. We often decide to walk the same mountain route, or climb on the same crag, or at least to do these things from the same starting point (be that Ogwen, Pen Y Pass, Beddgelert or wherever). How will we be sure that we will all be able to get on the same bus? If we can’t, why should the travellers on the first bus be inconvenienced by having to wait for the others to catch up, maybe half an hour later?

• If weekend visitors, no matter what their proposed accommodation, feel that they are going to be inconvenienced in parking in the core area (and at a high cost) they will simply not bother visiting any more. They will put the money towards travelling further afield where unreasonable restrictions are not enforced.

Safety of visitors

• Many times in the past, when the weather has changed during the day, our members have been able to descend to their cars at short notice and taken shelter or moved on. There have been occasions in the past where wet and cold walkers would have been exposed to further adverse weather conditions, with an attendant risk of hypothermia, if forced to wait in the valley for the next bus, without dry clothing,

• We have been unfortunate enough to suffer an accident (some years ago now) which resulted in the hospitalisation of one of our members whilst on an organised club weekend meet. He was ‘walking wounded’, so the fact that a vehicle was parked at the foot of the route we were climbing meant that we could quickly evacuate him to the Bangor Casualty Department, with the minimum of fuss and effort. Had we been required to wait for a bus to evacuate him, or to get someone to a telephone to call for a taxi/ambulance/helicopter, his suffering would certainly have been considerably prolonged, and his condition of shock may have been much worse. 

• The proposals do not appear to detail the suggested operating times of the Sherpa bus service, but it is fair to assume that the wintertime will have a reduced (less frequent) service, and that early morning and late evening services will be less frequent than daytime throughout the year. Here again there is a serious danger to the mountaineering fraternity - the traditional ‘alpine start’ to catch the best (ie strongest) snow or ice conditions in winter will be effectively ruled out. Furthermore, the unexpected delays that sometimes happen and result in a late arrival back in the valley, sometimes after dark and especially in the winter, may leave the climber with no chance of getting back to his starting point.

Economic effect

There are many ways in which the present visitor profile benefits the economy of Northern Snowdonia. 

• In particular, this club has several weekend meets every year in one or other of the climbing club huts in places like Deiniolen, Capel Curig, Beddgelert and Rhyd Ddu. In the summer, we also use the campsites at Capel Curig and Ogwen. During these, we try to purchase supplies locally, we frequent the pubs and cafes of the villages, we use the local gear shops and so on. The fact that we are using these places helps to enable the owners of that establishment to pay for its upkeep, but also to pay your Council Tax. If your proposals were to be implemented, we and doubtless a lot of similar clubs, would have to consider moving our weekends away from Snowdonia, to other more accessible places. We can get to the Peak District, mid Wales, Lake District and Yorkshire Dales in just about the same travelling time.

We feel that the ‘traffic management’ parts of your proposed scheme are badly thought through and therefore useless to a great many of the regular, habitual visitors to the area. Do you really feel that roadside parking causes a serious visual blight problem in places like Ogwen, or that the laybys in the Llanberis Pass are a danger to other road users? The fact is that the road down the Pass is so narrow and twisting that the traffic generally is moving quite slowly, so let’s keep it that way.

By all means lay down an improved network of paths for walkers and cyclists throughout the Core Area. Do it with a view to  developing those into an attraction in their own right. Don’t concentrate on roadside paths and tracks, but use the natural features of the land and create more rights of way through the passes and valleys of the mountains. Nationally, there are many examples where the development of a waymarked, long distance walking or cycling route has been of great benefit to the local economy (The C2C and Coast to Coast routes from Cumbria to the North East; the West Highland Way; the South Downs Way, to name but a few). But put the paths in such places that the users are not exposed to the dangers of passing traffic, nor do they present a danger to that traffic themselves. That’s a better way of taking Sustainable Development forward than limiting peoples’ choices and making their lives more difficult.

Your present proposals will serve to alienate many of the people who visit and ‘use’ the Snowdonia National Park at the moment. They are a vital source of income to a great many businesses and establishments in the Core Area. If you go ahead with your plans, the majority of visitors will see nothing but change for the worse, and they will vote with their feet (or their cars) and move elsewhere, taking their trade with them. One thing the proposals will not do is ‘offer a high quality experience to the visitor’ (section 4.13).

Sadly, although we are generally in favour of the principles behind Sustainable Development, and Green Tourism, these proposals cannot find much favour in our opinion. They will simply be too inconvenient for many of the current visitors, and when the personal safety and economic impact effects are taken into account, we cannot support them in their current form. We suggest you do the sensible thing and start much of your thinking again.

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