Councillors set to look at tourism in south Warwickshire in wake of Covid-19

Councillors are to look at the state of tourism across the area in the wake of the Covid pandemic.

A task and finish group is to be set-up to consider how to boost numbers and the chief executive of Shakepeare’s England - the organisation that promotes south Warwickshire to visitors across the world - will be asked to give her views.

But members of Stratford District Council’s overview and scrutiny committee stopped short of inviting other industry experts to have their say.

At their committee meeting on Wednesday (January 5) Cllr Susan Juned (Lib Dem, Alcester Town) said: “It has been a long trend that day visitors only target the principal town in the district which is Stratford rather than having a longer stay.

"We have not done enough to perhaps encourage people to come and stay a week in the area and then come and see all the towns and all the historic parts of this beautiful district.

Cllr Chris Mills (Con, Kineton) added: “We are concentrating on Stratford and we need to go out to the wider area.

"I am going to bang on about Compton Verney which is an amazing place and I wonder if they could be brought in because they have a big task regarding tourism.”

Cllr John Fielding (Con, Red Horse) suggested that the invitation list should be extended further. He said: “If we go down that route then we should surely bring the National Trust in as they have a number of properties in the district and we ought to look at how they are going to look at tourism in the future.”

Committee chair Cllr Penny-Anne O’Donnell (Con, Ettington) acknowledged the need for a task and finish group around tourism while the council’s deputy chief executive Tony Perks added: “I think the idea of working with Shakespeare’s England is a good one as that’s the main thing we are doing to support tourism here and we invest in that.

“It would be good to start with Shakespeare’s England as they will have relationships with the National Trust and other bodies.”

The committee agreed that Helen Peters, the organisation’s chief executive, should be invited to either the March or April meeting.