Sirs,
I read with interest Marlborough News piece regarding Wiltshire Council cutting its membership budget to Visit Wiltshire and Marlborough Town Council cancelling its membership of the Great West Way project. I also read Dawn Wilson’s letter on the loss of support for tourism, visitors and the hospitality industry.
Marlborough has always welcomed visitors and to a great extent relied on visitors to sustain its thriving local businesses. The town has always been on important routes east – west and also north – south. The location of the town on a crossing point of the River Kennet and on two important routes gave rise to the growth of the town, its local economy and its large and vibrant High St with numerous coaching inns, hostelries, trades, retailers, the market, and all manner of businesses serving travellers and their horses etc.
The popularity of the town for tourism has continued and the town remained a thriving market town on the main route east west along the A4. Over time Tourists and travellers have had a much wider choice of destinations to visit both within the UK and abroad. In order to maintain the vibrant High Street, jobs and local economy, the benefits and attractions of the town and its surroundings need to be advertised to people from elsewhere in the UK and from abroad who may never have visited or thought of visiting Marlborough with its heritage, history and individual retailers and hospitality.
The Great West Way was launched in 2018 to bring attention to the wonderful places to visit on the 125 mile route between London and Bristol. The route was launched during England Tourism week with a Great West Way magazine available at almost 200 outlets and contains maps and information on places to visit, places to say and eat along the route.
The Great West Way will become the most interesting long distance tourist route in the UK and possibly in Europe. It will be advertised in tourist brochures, travel books etc. and is a multi modal route for visitors in cars, coaches, cycles, with trains along parts of the route. The places of interest include the iconic – Kew Gardens, Windsor Castle, Eton, River Thames path; Market towns such as Hungerford and Marlborough, ancient sites – Avebury, Stonehenge, Silbury Hill, Long Barrows, Stately homes – Bowood, Stourhead; Kennet and Avon canal, Georgian City of Bath and finally Bristol with its harbour, SS Great Britain and modern interactive museums etc.
Marlborough is in the middle of the Great West Way and is the ideal place to stop, shop, eat, and stay. Tourist spend provides jobs, income, interest, and vitality and retains the High St we know. All this is obvious. Marlborough Town Council along with every other council on the route joined this initiative for the period 2020- 2024. At a meeting in November 2023 the Town Council held a secret meeting to discuss its continued membership of the GWW at a cost of £2,100 pa, The minutes of the meeting simply record that membership of the Great West Way was discussed and the Town Clerk instructed accordingly. When I asked the town clerk what this meant he confirmed that the Town Council had decided to cancel its membership and would rely instead on Visit Wiltshire to promote tourism. Since then Wiltshire Council has also cancelled Visit Wiltshire and so it seems that there is no organisation promoting tourism in Wiltshire in general or Marlborough in particular.
No other town on the Great West Way appears to have cancelled its membership.
The Great West Way encourages each town and any tourist related businesses to appoint an ambassador to promote their town or business to a wide range of national and international tourist bodies. Clearly No one in Marlborough can do this now.
It seems that promoting this major part of the economy is now the responsibility of councillor Clewer – the leader of Wiltshire Council.
Richard Clewer is not only the leader of the Council, he is also national spokesman on Planning Matters for County Councils, and in the consultation on the Wiltshire Local Plan he also spoke on most issues in the plan and issues in most towns as well as affordable housing provision, public transport and other issues and regularly runs a Q&A session on everthing. Now it seem he is responsible for marketing tourism and promoting this significant part of the county economy.
Unlike Richard Clewer I am not an expert in everything, but as a non- expert it seems to me that abandoning Visit Wiltshire and the GWW seems a strange way to promote visits to Wiltshire.
Similarly for the Town Council, with an annual income of £890,000 to scrap its membership of the Great West Way at a cost of £2,100 without any consultation with local businesses or people and without any reasons being given is unwise, and to rely on Visit Wiltshire instead has proved to be premature as Wiltshire Council have since abandoned it.
I for one believe that more tourism not less is better for the town and its status and reputation. As it stands, every other council must look at Marlborough as if the Town Council has lost its way and taken leave of its senses. Perhaps the TC can reconsider the membership of Great West Way and this time in public.
Yours,
Ian Mellor
Marlborough
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