Wise Words from Brecon Tourist Office
There are two things about which there are by far the greatest number of complaints received in Brecon Tourist Information Centre - Parking and Toilet facilities.
I don’t think that CRAP can do much about toilet facilities, but we welcome the timely comments made about parking and the interesting suggestions made.
Our informant suggests that some changes to car parking charges would be welcomed by both traders and visitors to Brecon. “The way the current charges are worked just doesn't help tourism in Brecon. I don't know about the rest of Powys”
“In an ideal world parking would be free for visitors but I know that a lot of the car parks would then become full with people leaving their cars long term.”
The problem for many visitors is that if they are staying for a few days they have to keep visiting the car park to renew their ticket. Even if just staying overnight, they must get up before 8am to buy a ticket to avoid getting booked.
“My suggestion is to introduce a new system of charging in two areas.”
1. Introduce a ticket charge that would go through the night until 10.30am the following morning. This would allow the people who stay in Brecon for one night to have their breakfast without panicking about getting booked for parking.
2. Introduce a weekly car parking charge. This would allow visitors to come and go as they please without worrying about getting booked.
The suggestion is that if it proves too difficult to convert the existing ticket machines to handle the new charges, parking vouchers, produced by the Council could be sold to local hotels and B & Bs which they in turn would sell at cost to visitors. These timed and dated vouchers would then allow parking and override usual car park charges.
(CRAP comment) The system is simple and already proven; many local authorities already operate similar schemes.
The Council would derive income from the sale of vouchers and our visitors would be happy. “I think that visitors would be happy to pay the charges - they are more concerned with getting booked!”
Thank you Brecon; please keep your comments coming in. Remember all comments and practical ideas are welcome.
Remember our e-mail address is: crap-powys@mail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment