CLA call for new look at access to coast plan (From Smallholder)

CLA call for new look at access to coast plan

12:00pm Friday 10th April 2009 in

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The Country Land Owners have suggested the Government take another look at the financial implications of introducing a statutory right of access to the coas. Particularly taking account of the potential impact on holiday businesses.

The association, to which many landowners belong, says that proposals to extend a statutory right of access to the coast contained within the Marine and Coastal Access Bill could inflict terminal damage on businesses which depend on privacy as their key selling point.

One director of the CLA, John Mortimer, says the Bill as it stands poses a real threat to a wide range of coastal based businesses - at a time when the Government should be doing everything in its power to help businesses remain viable.

"We hope that reports that the Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson, is thinking of scrapping the coastal access section of the Bill are true - because the Bill can only add to downward financial pressures on service based businesses such as hotels and holiday camps.

"Our members who operate holiday businesses are seriously concerned about the economic impact of this legislation. The argument that a statutory right of access will bring more people to the coast and create more business is illusory. There are no more trains or buses to get more people to the coast and no extra money in people's pockets for them to spend. What will happen is real damage to real businesses already struggling to cope with the repercussions of the global economic crisis.

"We know that the Bill will affect the capital values of coastal properties, but holiday parks and campsites with exclusive or private beaches are now projecting between a 20-30 per cent drop in income - and there are bound to be repercussions within local economies. Surely now is not the time for the Government to be thinking about adding to the existing economic woes?"

It was, he said, hard to understand the rationale behind a measure which would cost public money, deliver little public gain, penalise private enterprise and has already drawn strongly worded criticism from three parliamentary select committees.

"This is a grandiose scheme which is being driven forward by Natural England on a budget which will almost certainly be overspent. We cannot see the justification in spending millions and millions of pounds of public money on a project which will cost so much to deliver so little and which, in the process, will inflict harsh financial losses on already struggling businesses."

Mr Mortimer said he hoped that the Business Secretary and the Chancellor would take a new look at the proposal and realise that now was not the time to be spending tens of millions of pounds on a law which would actually