Visitors from Warwickshire, the West Midlands and further afield enjoyed outings to Warwickshire County Council-run Kingsbury Water Park, Hartshill Hayes Country Park, Ryton Pools Country Park, Burton Dassett Hills and Pooley Country Park; three greenways at Kenilworth, Offchurch and Stratford; as well as Ufton Fields Nature Reserve and Stockton Cutting.
The latest figures for tourism in Warwickshire revealed £1,263 million was spent in the area from 14.6 million trips while 22,645 local people were employed in the tourism sector.
Cllr Marian Humphreys from Warwickshire County Council went along to Pooley Country Park in Polesworth and met Sarah and Oliver Exall, who own The Pit Stop Coffee Shop. Since the family-run business opened last summer, visitor numbers have increased at Pooley by a staggering 50%.
Her visit was to mark English Tourism Week (March 14-23) which is led by VisitEngland as an annual celebration of the vibrant tourism industry, highlighting its economic importance to local economies and promoting the innovation, quality and range of products and services on offer to encourage more domestic breaks.
This year’s theme is ‘Supporting people and places to drive growth’ which aligns with Warwickshire’s Economic Growth Strategy focused on ambitious and sustainable growth.
The amazing offer within its country parks, three greenways and two nature reserves, delivered by Warwickshire Country Parks Service, is helping increase visitor numbers, and supporting the local economy.
Visitors to Warwickshire’s parks and greenways can enjoy a host of concessionary businesses, including food and drinks caterers, ice cream vans, bicycle hire, and ‘pay to play’ bouncy castle and trampolines.
Well-renowned local business, Farmers Fayre, became the new café operator at Ryton Pools Country Park last March which has seen a 26% increase in visitor numbers since the café started operating.
The County Council also installed its first roof-mounted solar panels with 30 Photovoltaic (PV) modules to the café which is expected to fulfil 20% of the park’s energy needs and save around 2.63 tomes of CO2 emissions each year to support the council’s ambition of a sustainable future and become a net zero organisation by 2030.
During 2023/2024 a number of activities to support health and wellbeing and to protect the environment were introduced.
These included Friends of Kingsbury Water Park selling 4,002 bags of duck food to fund park improvements; hosting the Midlands ‘Spring into Fishing’ event with the Angling Trust to teach new anglers safe, sustainable fishing; and volunteers from Butterfly Conservation helping to launch “Let’s Create Wild Spaces” projects at Ryton Pools, with 19 mini projects supporting specific moth and butterfly species.
Cllr Humphreys said English Tourism Week was a perfect opportunity to highlight the wide variety of vibrant attractions for visitors to enjoy at Warwickshire County Council’s green spaces which are situated throughout the county.
“We have worked hard over the past 12 months to build our commercial partnerships to enhance visitors’ experiences and to generate vital income to make our country parks and the service we offer the best they can be,” she said.
“Warwickshire is a place to do business that provides economic opportunities tailored to business needs while meeting the county's sustainable and inclusive ambitions which are reflected in the businesses operating from our country parks.
“To have reached just under a million visitors to our country parks in 2023-24 shows that we are providing the amenities that people want and that more and more people appreciate the benefits of visiting country parks for their health and wellbeing.”
Sarah Exall from The Pit Stop Coffee Shop added: “Pooley Country Park has a mixture of history because of its mining background and it is a big draw for families with the play park, the soft play at our cafe and the walks throughout the site which bring together different generations plus it is a central meeting spot in the area.
“We are really pleased with the response to our café and we want to keep it growing at a rapid rate. We’re delighted the sun has finally started to come out and we’re going to be organising more activities such as floristry workshops for adults and nature walks for children.”
For further information, please visit https://visit.warwickshire.gov.uk/ and https://countryparks.warwickshire.gov.uk/