“The publicity surrounding this whole initiative, which will undoubtedly receive international as well as UK-wide attention, should allow more areas to attract more visitors.” (5.5)  Really?

I can see the Wales Tourist Board advertisements now -

• come and visit our “range of high quality transfer and waiting facilities” 

• experience “real time passenger information along the corridors” while you stand endlessly waiting for a bus.

• appear on CCTV as you move from one “transport interchange” to another.

The penalty for declining to participate in this “enhanced visitor experience” is to drive continuously without rest, no stopping to walk or admire the view - God-forbid you might enjoy yourself - so if you dare commit such a crime one of our friendly wardens will slap a fine on you.

Please note:- Northern Snowdonia is not suitable for those who are poor, disabled, elderly or ill, have young children or want to do anything other than ‘shop’.  So much for a ‘key theme’ of “social inclusion.”

Amazingly one of your targets for the first 1-3 years is “Identify the needs and expectations of the wide range of people that “use” Northern Snowdonia”(Objective 4.1) - Wonderful! Ask people what they need after you have already decided.

On the one hand you are saying “these strategic aims, objectives and targets are not final and will be revised to reflect your views and comments after the consultation period.”( 5.11) but on the other hand we read section  (10.1) “A significant number of projects are already being implemented or are under development within the Northern Snowdonia area which are directly and indirectly achieving the aims and objectives contained within this strategy.”  This leads me to conclude that this is just a ‘tick the box’ consultation.

The Snowdonia Green Key scheme flies in the face of common sense.  Monty Python scriptwriters couldn’t have done better.  It would be funny if it were not so serious.

Look at your proposals through our eyes, the message is that visitors are a necessary but unwelcome nuisance, monetary units to be manipulated to fit into your plans.  Your proposed urbanisation of the Park with increasingly empty buses driving round and round the most popular routes will do more harm to the environment than a few parked (and therefore non polluting) cars.  It is extremely unlikely that the Park and Ride scheme will be self funding, even with compulsion, let alone make the predicted pie-in-the-sky profits.

Most of the National Park is already a ‘rural clearway’, there is precious little of it left that is accessible by the visitor and now you are planning even more stringent restrictions.  You may as well build an enormous wall around the place and throw away the key.  The result will be the collapse of your local economy and the destruction of local peoples’ livelihoods, a scenario which visitors do care about.

There is no traffic problem in the Snowdonia National Park, what is needed are more car parks similar to those provided in the Lake District and a genuine welcome.  It is a sad situation but there is no point in discussing the many good ideas in the report (my sons are keen cyclists for instance) as there won’t be any visitors to use them.  You might be able to compel people to get on the buses once but you can’t compel them to come back again.  There are many other beautiful locations in this country people can choose to visit, not to mention overseas attractions.

 Next Observation

Back