Sgwd yr Eira (Waterfall of the Falling Snow) on the Afon Hepste during the ‘Beast from the East’ in 2018
Transport Initiatives were commissioned by the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority to find solutions to the escalating tourist parking problems due to increased visitor numbers in the “Waterfall Country”. The southern part of the Brecon Beacons has the greatest concentration of significant waterfalls in Britain. It features regularly in “top ten” lists of visitor attractions.
What tabloid papers would call ‘traffic chaos’ at Clun Gwynn
Car borne visitors park indiscriminately in villages, gateways and passing places blocking access for residents and farms alike. The area is split across three local authorities and the multiple responsibilities have made progress difficult. In addition, the local residents had lost faith in the various authorities.
Rob chats to walkers on the Four Falls Trail at Gwaun Hepste
The work involved:
- Manual and automated surveys of traffic and parking on a busy bank holiday weekend
- Interviewing visitors
- A comprehensive consultation exercise with local residents and businesses where we sought their views on the problems and worked with them in developing solutions
- An assessment of local land supply and discussions with landowners about temporary parking on their fields
Esther, Rob and the residents of Ystradfellte
- Assessing locations for additional parking
- Designing measures to reduce the impact of traffic on villages, such as restricted parking zones, residents’ parking and traffic calming
- Making the waterfalls “product” more intelligible and easier to market in a way that kept visitors away from sensitive areas
A focus group at the Glynneath Golf Club facilitated by Esther Jones of Support Staffordshire
Working with the residents showed us that the problem was considerably more than a traffic and parking problem solvable by providing more parking and implementing yellow lines where vehicles caused obstructions. The residents felt that the visitors caused them problems yet there few ways they could profit from them and so return benefit to the community.
Rural controlled parking zone at the Roaches in Staffordshire. An example for what we proposed in the Waterfall Country
The key approach was to separate the Waterfalls and the walks to them to spread the visitor load and keep access routes away from the narrower lanes. Peak demand was accommodated by temporary car parks in farmers fields with a rural restricted parking zone keeping visitor parking away from sensitive areas and enabling farmers to charge. A more intelligible footpath signing system was devised. Although outside our area of expertise we encouraged the NPA to consider a Community Interest Company as a way of using windfarm money to implement measures that helped the residents to better cope with the visitor influx.
Visitors watch Sgwd yr Eira. You can walk behind this waterfall. Historically it was on a drove route where animals could cross the river without fording it.
We achieved the following outcomes
- Focussed the various authorities minds on the problem and showed how by working together the problems could be solved
- Brought buy-in from local landowners
- Restored public trust and convinced residents that their views counted
- Enabled the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority to gain extra funding from the Welsh Government and employ an additional member of staff to deal with Waterfalls issues.
Provided a multi-faceted strategy that combined permanent car park provision, temporary provision, changes in car park management, changes to footpath branding and signing, a highways signing strategy, enforcement and moving some visitors to places more able to cope. (updated 12/06/2024)
And there’s more…
What is ‘Barrie from Brecon’ doing here? An outcome from our work in Tal y Bont on Usk.
We’ve done more work in the Brecon Beacons. We investigated more tourist parking problems in Tal y Bont on Usk and investigated a potential long distance cycle route along Offa’s Dyke which passes through the National Park