Sirs,
Imagine you are a small business with food and accommodation or a visitor attraction like Merchant’s House. Where do you think visitors from abroad go to find what you are offering? Visit Britain, is perhaps a good place to start. Now what if this visitor wants to link London heritage with Stonehenge and crop circles. VisitLondon and VisitWiltshire are there to help. Accommodation, places to go, travel connections, things to do and see it’s all there. They work with package holiday reps to make sure you see all that and more. The Great West Way, our very own A4 as a Route 66 was supported by both these organisations. Sadly Marlborough TC has pulled out of this as well. A short sighted decision perhaps as these things take years to build and minutes to destroy.
Now imagine Wiltshire Council doing all that marketing and destination management. They plan to save £150,000 over two years taking this on as a D.I.Y. project. I don’t know about you but if they can’t fill potholes I doubt they can deliver this! Also note Cllr Clewer brags about having a £600,000 underspend this year unlike so many other councils struggling with there budgets. Building houses generates more council tax.
Rather than support an organisation, that Wiltshire Council set up and funded for 13 years, to become one of the new Local Visitor Enterprise Partnerships (LVEP), which 30 of the 48 English counties have already done, Cllr Clewer (there can be only one), Cabinet Member for Tourism, has said no, we will do this ourselves. Did I mention that the LVEPs will be the route to access additional government funds? How much experience has he got in destination management I wonder. Will we see him smiling on billboards along the M4?
When this cabinet took the decision not to continue to fund VisitWiltshire last year the situation with the new arrangements for LVEPs was not clearly understood. It is true that there is some future uncertainty with an election looming so why would you throw away an organisation that can deliver so much pound for pound when the replacement is, what exactly? At this point Cllr Clewer was to put it bluntly “clueless”.
Pewsey Vale Tourism Partnership members, partners and a number of market towns across Wiltshire agree that value for money is demonstrated by the industry awards won by VisitWiltshire. Wiltshire therefore already has a highly regarded and highly performing organisation in place that is set up to be a successful LVEP.
Facts and Estimated Losses
There is insufficient time, in our opinion, for Wiltshire Council officers, even if extremely gifted and qualified, to be able to deliver to the current level and standards of VisitWiltshire in twelve months let alone by April.
Wiltshire will be excluded from VisitEngland/ VisitBritain national and international marketing activity and according to their calculations, lose £5.6million in direct and indirect international visitor spend per annum from April 2024. These losses are significant, and Wiltshire, its towns and all the businesses that are involved in the visitor economy both directly and indirectly will suffer. Pre-Covid, the income derived from visitors to Wiltshire was £1.5 billion per annum.
When the Pewsey Vale Tourism Partnership has spoken to Wiltshire Councillors about this situation, the response has referred to a new walking app – Explore Wiltshire – and they say that there has been significant investment in this app and it will replace VisitWiltshire. Whilst the new walking app is welcome, it does not in any way replace the work that VisitWiltshire does.
We would ask you all to wake up and lobby Wiltshire Council until it reviews its decision to remove funding from VisitWiltshire. Please act before it is too late. Elected Cllr “Clueless” Clewer will be long gone when this tragedy comes home to roost.
Yours,
Dawn Wilson
Chair
Pewsey Vale Tourism Partnership
Caroline to be elected to Town Council on 21 March
