TOURISM in the Craven Dales will never return to what it was pre-coronavirus pandemic, say councillors.

Visitor levels during the pandemic increased with more people taking their holidays at home rather than abroad, heard a meeting of Craven District Council.

And although foreign travel had returned, issues with airports and people discovering the beauty of the area meant visitor numbers would remain high.

Councillors were discussing a tourism impact report carried out by the council’s select committee after listening to evidence collected from parish and town councils, emergency services and the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority.

In a letter to the committee, David Butterworth, chief executive of the national park authority, had hit back at the report which had criticised the national park, claiming it was not doing all it could to help ‘under siege’ honey-pot communities.

Committee chair, Cllr David Staveley said at last week's meeting, he was sorry if the report had been taken the wrong way by some, but that any criticisms were meant with the best possible intentions.

The council was meant as a ‘critical friend’ and the report was a testament to what had been described as a ‘disconnect’ with the national park.

“It will be good to see a really positive working relationship between the bodies representing our communities and the communities themselves,” he said.

He added he was pleased that Mr Butterworth had responded, but was sorry that it had not come sooner.

Cllr Carl Lis, a former chair of the national park authority, welcomed changes to the report, which he had last month described as ‘full of inaccuracies’, and also the input from Mr Butterworth.

He said: “It is no good me sitting here saying that the national park is wonderful when there is evidence to the contrary, including evidence from some parish councils. I think the report is now balanced, let’s wait to see the reactions we get from the parishes.”

He added: “We will never go back to how things were before Covid. There are so many people given the opportunity to visit the national parks have realised how beautiful they are and are coming back.”

Cllr Andy Solloway said he had ridden his bike through Burnsall recently and it had been packed, so he had carried on to somewhere quieter.

“Tourism has been changed by the pandemic, I don’t think it will ever go back to what it was. We’ve got airports where people can’t physically leave the country. I think this report is a wake-up call, we need to have a different approach to tourism,” he said.

Cllr Andy Brown added it was important that tourism was sustainable.

“I am still a believer that tourism is an important part of our economy and that it contributes to our lifestyles and our incomes.

“We came to this because of the extreme experience during Covid. We saw with our own eyes and heard some quite extreme incidents what can happen when tourism hits very, very high levels. We heard some evidence from some very genuine people about some very unpleasant experiences where they were in some of the most touristy bits at some of the most touristy times, we have to think long and hard about tourism if the trend is going to be for increasing staycations and people coming to the Dales.

“I think we have serious evidence about what will happen if we don’t manage tourism sustainably.”

Cllr Brown said he was particularly concerned about public transport. “We have to plan for the assumption that it could destroy what we fight to protect unless we manage it very well, and I don’t think it is a criticism of any other authority if we say what we think about the future.”

The committee approved the report which will now go to the full council for ratification.

Recommendations include a multi-agency partnership approach to tourism and greater on site management by the national park of large scale events. Also recommended was better traffic management and a review by the national park of its no litter bins policy.