Travel levy warning over 'heavily taxed' tourists
BBCA tourism boss has warned against the "easy" option of taxing visitors entering a national park, amid proposals to introduce a levy.
The Lake District National Park Partnership (LDNPP) recently published a report looking into funding options for sustainable transport and pledged to "refine costing for the installation and operation of a vehicle levy" to enter and move around the park.
But Gill Haigh, managing director of Cumbria Tourism, said businesses had still not recovered from the Covid pandemic and new taxes could "upset that fragile economy".
"It sounds very easy [to say] 'let's tax the tourist', but we have to remember the tourist is already very heavily taxed," she said.
"One of the challenges that we've all got is that we're really feeling it in our pocket and that's really impacting on our businesses at the moment."
The LDNPP is a partnership between the Lake District National Park Authority (LDNPA), local councils and other organisations.
The work it did on sustainable travel was prompted by a study from Friends of the Lake District which looked at tourism's impact on the area and different models used in Europe to mitigate issues.
Heavy traffic and chaotic parking are long-standing issues in the Lake District, with rural roads becoming easily congested.
The LDNPP report said it wanted to set "clear, measurable goals" for its "vision for world-class sustainable travel" to and within the Lake District.
This work would be done ahead of Cumbria's first mayoral election in 2027.
Once the new combined authority is operational, the LDNPP would work with it on feasibility studies, the report said.
'Clear choice'
Speaking to Radio Cumbria, Haigh said any new proposal would have to safeguard jobs and the experience offered to visitors.
She said: "There's a long way to go, there's a lot of conversations and discussions to have, but whatever we do we must make sure that we don't inadvertently create problems for our economy."
In the meantime, the LDNPP has launched a consultation, which is open until 30 January, asking residents to outline their priorities for the next five years.
Michael Hill, CEO of Friends of the Lake District, said he was pleased to see the report published.
"This report lays out a clear choice between systemic change in the way people travel around the park and business as usual – slow, incremental improvement in public transport that fails to draw people out of their own vehicles."
