Why the Lake District could drop a congestion charge on summer visitors
Exclusive: ‘You wouldn't charge it in the winter, you wouldn't charge it on quiet days outside the school holidays’
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As Cumbria reports a slump in visitor numbers, a leading voice in policy for the north of England has said a congestion charge for the Lake District is worth considering.
Henri Murison, chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said funds raised could be used to improve the environment and boost the local bus service.
He told The Independent’s daily travel podcast: “On those summer days when people are sat in hours and hours of traffic, I'm sure many of them would want to have access to a good public transport system, which currently there's no other way of paying for.
“If people come from around the world and experience the centre of Ambleside – full of cars on a on a hot day and lots of smoke and traffic fumes – that isn't the product we're trying to sell international visitors.
“A visitor charge might work in big cities, but a congestion charge might work better in the Lake District, because that congestion charge in the Lake District would probably be variable.
“You wouldn't charge it in the winter, you wouldn't charge it on quiet days outside the school holidays, but what you would do is probably target charging people when congestion was a natural issue and then put in place free park and ride and other services as a compensation to those that would otherwise have to pay it.”
New data from the Scarborough Tourism Economic Activity Monitor revealed a 14 per cent drop in the number of visitors to the Lake District overall and a 18 percent fall in day visitors in 2024 compared with 2019. There was a smaller fall in both visitors and revenue over the previous year.
Mr Murison said: “Compared to European destinations, we don't offer the things that many visitors expect, and that's because of our wide underfunding of local government, which means that visitors come to the UK, but they maybe don't get the brilliant experience we would want to give them.
“You can make a strong argument that the council there, for example, in Westmoreland & Furness, has a significant financial burden that comes from the visitor economy.
“If you could invest more in the proposition, you can make travel more sustainable
“I’m not wedded to one particular solution to find the way to raise the money to invest in growing sustainably our tourism economy – I just want to find a way of doing it.”
