P-06-1374 Bring Wales in line with England by allowing landowners 60 days tent and campervan camping a year – Correspondence from Petitioner to Chair, 2 July 2024

Good morning

Many thanks for letting me have the chance to respond to the letter from the Minister.  Obviously I am very disappointed by the amount of time it has taken to get this far – the petition was last year, and it then took 6 months for a response from the Minister and even then the response was forced by the need to answer an FOI request, so I don’t hold out much hope that the timescales quoted in the response (for a consultation on changes to permitted rights in Wales to be issued this year) will actually be adhered to.

I also want to return to the points made in the response about disruption, extra traffic on rural roads, noise and pollution.

I have looked through all the responses and the majority of the 118 responses which answered this question are in favour of the 56 days for pop-up camping being made permanent (I made it by around a factor of 2 to 1 in favour). Something which gains such support must be deemed to be worth pursuing, after all, many politicians are elected on 35% support, and Brexit was delivered with 51% support.

As a land owner who operates under 28 days permitted rights I believe that extending to 56 days of operation a year will not instantly double the number of people camping, it will actually mean that sites like my own won’t have to cram everyone possible onto the site to make money over 28 days, we can instead have a reduced number of people on site over 56 days, so the impact on any individual day on traffic and pollution should be reduced, and move evenly spread across the season – which will in turn help local businesses selling food and tourism attractions as well as, at the moment the 28 days allowed often covers Easter, 2 May bank holidays and the August Bank holiday period leaving no other weekends available in the season throughout June, July and August.

We must also remember that Wales has the most to gain from a change in the rules, with data from Visit Britain showing that 34% of holidays in Wales involve camping or caravanning compared to 20% in England and 21% in Scotland so there is a big opportunity to boost tourism and help the farming sector with this change.  On Pitch-up.com pop-up campsites in Wales achieve a 9.2/10 rating compared with 9.1 out of 10 for regular sites so the pop-up sector is a quality alternative giving people value for money.

I urge the Minister to push forward with the proposed changes and get to a consultation as soon as possible so that businesses like mine can have some certainty ahead of the Easter 2025 season openings.

Many thanks

Andrew Walton

Tynrhos Camping and Fishing