Impact of tourists on the river meadows.

Grassington is a small village in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, located a short walk from the river Wharfe. This area is home to a beautiful river meadow along its banks that, during the summer, is packed with tourists from all over the country who come to enjoy the tranquilly of the National Park. However, this influx of tourists during the summer months does impact the natural landscape around the riverbanks, with certain portions of the vegetation getting trampled, compacted, and, in some cases, completely removed by people walking on them. The location of “Site 1” and its transects are described later.

Figure 1 – Shows the vegetation coverage on a path on the river meadows.

Figure 2- shows a penetrometer reading on a footpath in Grassington.

Using Figures 1 and 2, we can see that we have some correlation between the level of vegetation and the penetrometer reading. This can be attributed to the fact that it is harder for vegetation to grow/sprout and prosper on compacted ground. In addition, the area in which these quadrats were taken indicated that this is on a path that is frequently walked on by many people each day. This is true as the area where we conducted this test is close to the main entry point of the river meadow, so there is a greater concentration of people walking over it. If we took readings further away from this point, the readings would be slightly different as there would be fewer people walking over the area. However, the reason that there is not a very clear correlation between the two graphs is that the river meadow is not a very fragile landscape and can recover quickly.

Figure 3- One of the areas where Figures 1 and 2’s transect was taken from.

Figure 3 highlights one of the areas that we took a transect from, and as you can see, not only is it very muddy, but you can also see that the area with no or little vegetation is expanding because of people walking around the muddy section in the centre. This causes a positive feedback cycle as this problem continues to grow until the grass starts growing again during the summer months, when the number of tourists is at its highest all year. This is not a unique problem for the park, as all national and public parks across the world have to deal with this problem. 

Figure 4 – shows what items people brought into the park.

In Figure 4, you can see the majority of people brought in either water or a packed lunch. Both of these items usually come in single-use plastic packaging and, therefore, can be easily thrown away, thus adding a litter problem for the National Park Authorities and locals to have to deal with. During a recent visit to Grassington, I noticed that there were no public bins at all in and around the main visitor parking lot. It turns out the local authorities have done this to encourage visitors to take their rubbish away with them (Sadler, 2020). Furthermore, it is seen as though many people bring in items; if there were to be bins around the visitor’s carpark, they would quickly get filled, meaning more staff would have to be employed by the council or park authorities, thus adding to their costs to empty them.

Most people who bring picnics or snacks will consume them near or in the meadow. I have frequently seen people having picnics on the banks of the river on previous visits.

Impact on tourists in the Village of Grassington.

In a survey of over 430 people, the age groups that visited Grassington were revealed.

Figure 5 – shows the distribution of the ages of visitors to Grassington.

The data from this can be seen in Figure 5. This data is not very surprising: fewer people between the ages of 16 and 24 visited Grassington compared to other groups such as 25 to 34 and 55 to 64-year-olds. The smallest group is 65+, which will be due to their older age and the fact that to explore most of Grassington, you will need to do lots of walking around its centre, and if you were to visit the river meadows that we discussed earlier, you would have to walk down a steep, uneven path to reach them.

Figure 6 – Shows the number of cars passing a certain point in and around the centre.

Figure 7 – Shows where the traffic was counted.

On the day at the beginning of March, when we gathered this data, the village was noticeably quiet compared to what I had seen before during peak summertime. Therefore, this data does not accurately depict the level of traffic during the summer months. However, it still demonstrates the significant difference in traffic at the three locations. Both locations, A and B, are on the main road that links tourists travelling on it to the main village car park. Furthermore, it shows that even though Grassington is a large tourist attraction, most of the cars that visit stay away from the main centre and small estate roads, which the local residents will appreciate.

Figure 8- Shows what information people used when visiting Grassington.

Figure 8 shows that out of 431 people, over 26% of them did not use any information when planning their visit. Another 22.5% used physical information like books and maps. 25.6% used online resources like Google and Facebook. This information shows that even in the digitalized world we live in now, there is still a demand for physical information. As a result of this, maps and other useful leaflets can be found at the visitor centre.

Tourism also benefits Grassington in many ways. A way to see the effects of it is to look at the businesses that have been set up in and around the village square. There are a large number of cafes and unique specialist shops, such as ‘Ashton House Crafts & Carvings, which type of shops are more aimed at tourists who will mainly come from urban areas. They typically sell unique items that visitors might not see anywhere else; therefore, they get most of their business from the more affluent tourists. This means that most of the population of Grassington will encourage tourism as it supports their village’s local shops and businesses. However, this further supports the argument that the local population will want to protect the environment from the less’respectful’ tourists that may litter or damage the surrounding landscape.

Second Homes

Second homes have become a major problem in many national parks around the UK, and Grassington is at the centre of the second house problem facing the Yorkshire Dales National Park. The problem is when rich families/individuals buy themselves a secondary house away from the city that they live in to act like a home away from home. However, they would only use this house on occasion (during holidays), which causes problems for the villages where this takes place. For example, empty houses mean a reduction in economic activity. About 27% of all the houses in the Yorkshire Dales National Park are second homes; this means around 3,500 of the 13,000 homes are second homes. (Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, 2022)

Figure 9- Planned new housing developments.

Figure 10 – Planned new housing developments.

Both Figures 9 and 10 show suggested housing developments that hope to increase the number of available houses in the village. The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authorities have been trying to put a plan in place to help with this problem. An example of this is the second-home council tax premium. (Yorkshire Dales National Park , 2022) This premium would be an extra payment that homeowners would have to make on their homes.

Most of the time, these “honeypot” places can deal with the large numbers of tourists that visit the town. However, there have been instances where demand has outweighed supply. For example, during COVID-19, international holidays were all cancelled, causing people to flood their local national parks. Malham, which is another small town in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, experienced a large influx of people. During March 27 and May 11 of 2020, the regional police issued 758 fines due to lockdown breaches. (Marano, 2020)

Furthermore, during COVID, the Yorkshire Dales Nation Park saw a substantial increase in first-time visitors to the area. Around a fifth of all visitors during this year (2021) were mainly first-time visitors from West Yorkshire. A further 37 percent of the visitors during that year travelled from the outh-east  of England and London. (Jeeves, 2021).

It is not only the Yorkshire Dales National Park that has to balance the conservation of nature with the economic value tourism brings. Recently, Dartmoor National Park finally banned overnight camping on their land. For many years, the park allowed visitors to ‘Wild Camp’ but after multiple incidents in the park, they eventually banned it completely. (Marshall, 2023)

Over the coming years, the country’s national parks will have to deal with a greater demand for both housing and farmland while also coping with increased demand from both local and international tourists. As of 2017, over 12.6 million people visited the Yorkshire Dales National Park each year, so once the effects of COVID-19 have worn off, the national park’s visitor figures are expected to continue increasing. (Cochrane, 2017)

References

Cochrane, J. (2017). Tourism Resilience in UK National Parks. In Butler, R. ed. Tourism and Resilience, pp. 155-175.

Jeeves, P. (2021, December 27). Yorkshire Dales National Park witnesses dramatic rise in first-time visitors as tourists look to the countryside. Retrieved from The Yorkshire Post: https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/environment/yorkshire-dales-national-park-witnesses-dramatic-rise-in-first-time-visitors-as-tourists-look-to-the-countryside-3505578

Marano, R. (2020, May 15). West Yorkshire Police issue more than 700 fines for lockdown rule breakers. Retrieved from Yorkshire Evening Post: https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/health/coronavirus/west-yorkshire-police-issue-more-than-700-fines-for-lockdown-rule-breakers-2854812

Marshall, C. (2023, January 13). Historic wild camping tradition restricted on Dartmoor. Retrieved from BBC News: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64238116

Perraudin, F. (2017, December 3). How second-homes boom is hollowing out Yorkshire Dales villages. Retrieved from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/dec/03/yorkshire-dales-councils-plan-tax-crackdown-on-second-home-owners#:~:text=How%20second-homes%20boom%20is%20hollowing%20out%20Yorkshire%20Dales%20villages,-This%20article%20is&text=Increasing%20levels%20of%20se

Sadler, M. (2020, June 12). No More Rubbish Excuses. Retrieved from Yorkshire Dales National Park: https://www.yorkshiredales.org.uk/no-more-rubbish-excuses/

Yorkshire Dales National Park . (2022, November 15). YDNPA supports second homes Council Tax premium. Retrieved from Yorkshire Dales National Park: https://www.yorkshiredales.org.uk/ydnpa-supports-second-homes-council-tax-premium/

Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority. (2022, September). YDNPA supports second homes Council Tax premium. Retrieved from Yorkshire dales National Park: https://www.yorkshiredales.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2022/11/YDNPA-Housing-Statement.pdf