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Rt. Hon. Sir Alan Beith MPLiberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Berwick Upon TweedWorking for you and the Berwick upon Tweed Constituency all year roundin Northumberland and in Westminster |
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Beith's Bill Bid for Better Tourist Signs
June 10, 2009 4:00 PM
Sir Alan Beith, Liberal Democrat MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed has tabled a bill in the House of Commons to highlight a major frustration of many people whose businesses depend on tourism. The purpose of the bill is to require the Highways Agency to help promote tourism through better signage.
Sir Alan Beith said:
"Tourism is absolutely vital to most rural communities, and many tourist businesses depend on motorists finding their way off the main road to the wide variety of leisure, educational, catering, retail and accommodation facilities on offer. Many of those facilities depend on passing trade."
In his speech, Sir Alan described how the Highways Agency had recently removed signs at the side of the A1 for the golf club at Goswick without consulting the club. In 2000, the club had paid £1200 for the brown signs.
Despite apologising for their failure to consult, the Highways Agency have said that the signs cannot go back up as they are no longer in line with its current policy on tourist signs. They have said that the golf club, which is the first course in the north-east to get the honour of hosting the pre-qualifying competition for the British Open, should advise their visitors through its website to look for road signs to Goswick.
Sir Alan Beith said:
"Getting to the club at Goswick involves taking a dangerous turning off a single carriageway road. The idea that hundreds of visiting golfers should have to rely on their computers back home to spot the turning is ridiculous. If the Highways Agency wants to prove my Bill unnecessary, it must abandon this ridiculous refusal to reinstate very necessary signs, and show more flexibility and helpfulness to rural businesses."
Sir Alan also went on to highlight the problem small country pubs, tea rooms, animal sanctuaries and bed and breakfasts faced when trying to have smaller signs placed on the edge of a field or on a fence alongside the road. These require planning permission, for which fees are to be paid, whether the application is to be successful or not.
Sir Alan continued:
"I believe that there is a need for a more tolerant attitude, and for a simple approval process to ensure that signs provide direction to nearby tourist facilities and that they are safely sited, from a road safety point of view, proportionate and adequately designed.
"In a period of recession, the countryside depends more than ever on visiting tourists contributing to the rural economy. People need to be able to see where the facilities are, and it's better for road safety that the motorist can clearly see where to turn off and find a meal, a bed, a place of interest or a facility for children. At the moment, small businesses too often feel that the system is working against them when it should be helping them, enabling them to make their services available to the motorist and thereby to support tourism in the economy of the countryside."
This issue has been raised by several businesses in the Berwick-upon-Tweed constituency including Goswick Golf Club, Doxford Hall Hotel and Spa, and Longframlington Gardens.
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