Park bosses nearly triple commercial income

OVER LAST DECADE ATTRACTION BROUGHT IN MORE CASH

would also offer extra opportunities for cash.

Increasing tourism to the region also presents an attractive source of funds, buoyed by claims the summer saw the national park at its busiest since the 1970s.

This appears to have been born out in some of the figures available to bosses, with visitors to the flagship Sill centre, near Sycamore Gap, recently reaching levels comparable to those seen in 2019, before the start of the Covid pandemic.

While the start of the financial year in April saw business hampered by continuing restrictions, the recovery since then has been sharp, with retail income in August 52 per cent higher than expected.

Rosie Thomas, the park’s director of business development said: “It was a slower start [to the year] than we wanted because of restrictions and we suffered with the “pingdemic” from staffing and we couldn’t open in the way we wanted to.

“But we are starting to make that up and if we don’t we’re covered by the Covid grant.”