Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100
- 105)
TUESDAY 23 OCTOBER 2007
PETER HAMPSON,
MS SUZANNE
MALCOLM, STEVE
VINSON AND
STEVE WEAVER
Q100 Chairman: I do not want to fall
out with my colleague here, but presumably you do not view visitors
to your locality simply as being an additional burden on the Health
Service and all the facilities; you also regard them as people
who are going to come and spend lots of money on all the businesses
in your area, so there is a benefit.
Mr Hampson: But that benefit does
not end up in the local government pocket.
Mr Sanders: It does not stay in the local
economy.
Chairman: All the restaurants and hotels.
Q101 Mr Sanders: No. In the old days,
when somebody came down, they came down for a week, they stayed
in a guesthouse for a week and spent money in family-owned local
businesses. Today, they come down, they go self-catering, they
stock up in Sainsbury's or Marks & Spencer. Their money does
not stay in the local economy, yet the local people still have
to maintain the parks and gardens, still have to have more acres
of car parking space for the peak season, which is land that is
not deriving an economic benefit for the local people for most
of the year, and therefore the cost of tourism on the council
taxpayer is greater but the benefit to the council taxpayer is
less.
Mr Weaver: We could not survive
without businesses, you are absolutely right. They create the
jobs and the economy of Blackpool. The point I would make, though,
is that it is support for the creation of jobs and prosperity
in a resort such as Blackpool over and above what comes in through
government, through Formula Grant, which is not faced by areas
who do not have a visitor/tourism economy. They are not having
to support their industry to that tune in order to have the jobs
and prosperity in those areas. That is the difference really.
We are not saying we do not want visitors. We want more of them.
Chairman: I think Adrian might be.
Mr Sanders: No, I would say you do want
visitors but the same number of visitors does not make as much
money for the area as it used to and that needs to be recognised
by government.
Q102 Janet Anderson: Steve, could
I press you on that bit about the weighting of visitor numbers,
and you said this is something that is being discussed at the
moment. What would the best outcome of that discussion be for
you, in terms of support to the authority and how visitor numbers
are taken into account? What would you want to see out of that?
Mr Weaver: We want to see the
formula truly reflecting the number of day visitors and staying
visitors, which it does not at the moment. Some of the models
that have been pursued would significantly disadvantage us—and,
indeed, places like Manchester even more. There is a range of
options in what the Government wants. I am more than happy to
provide to the Committee the option we would prefer in terms of
that Formula Grant.
Q103 Janet Anderson: It may be useful
if you could put the various options in writing and how they would
impact on you and what would be the preferred solution.
Mr Weaver: I would be very happy
to do that.1
Mr Hampson: Hopefully it will
be an obvious point, but if the grant is not correct the local
authority gets less money, it has less money to spend. One of
the few places it can make savings is the non-statutory
1 Not received at time of printing.
support for tourism and that is where we have huge
problems. The effect on the tourism service is disproportionately
high.
Q104 Mr Sanders: Exactly.
Mr Hampson: Every time there is
a cut back, it falls massively on the tourism support and a number
of other, often associated supporting functions within the local
authority.
Q105 Chairman: There are ways in
which you can begin to address that; for instance, by making tourism
a performance indicator for local authorities. That is not going
so far as to make it a statutory obligation, but would you like
to see the Government make it plain that they expect local authorities
to do more to support tourism?
Mr Hampson: That would be an ideal
situation, if the messaging from central government was much stronger
about the role and function. I think in fact that is starting
to come through. The damage was done when the RDA system came
into place. I think I alluded earlier to this messaging, that
local authorities only have a role in the basic infrastructure
support. The trouble with the local authorities, like oil tankers,
is that it takes an awfully long time for them to change direction.
The message that was put in place in 2003, that they have no role,
has caused local authorities to consider their role and to start
falling out. The messaging that they do have a role is starting
to filter through. The problem is that it may take another three
or four years for authorities who have backed away from tourism
to pick up and start running with it. It is not an easy or quick
fix.
Chairman: I do not think we have any
more questions. May I thank you all very much for coming here.
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