Paul Crossley

We held a very successful Tourism Conference at the Guildhall on Tuesday with the guest speaker being the Independent’s Simon Calder. Click HERE for reporting of his contribution in the Chronicle.

This is my speach to the conference:-

I would like to be quite clear the Council is committed to a successful tourism industry.

As part of that commitment we invest around £630k per annum in Bath Tourism Plus in order for it to be successful and although we have had to share the stringent constraints of the public sector finances we are continuing to provide significant support both in cash and kind.

We do that because we believe that your success as an industry sector is our success in attracting visitors, business and political interest in B&NES and Bath in particular.

We can use the Roman Baths as an example. It regularly draws through its doors 20% of all of the visitors to Bath. We have enjoyed the best year in the last 25 during 2011.

If these figures represent their usual relationship to the number of visitors then we have probably enjoyed the busiest year the City has had as a centre for business.

I say ‘probably’ because the gross numbers of visitors is difficult to arrive at and has taken an interminably long time to produce – even if we consider its accuracy.

Along with Bath Tourism Plus we have been working on the development of the ‘T Stats’ project (stands for tourism statistics) and placing more resources behind gathering the data.

T Stats is intended to be our own – City wide – assessment of our tourism and retail sector. It should help us make the correct evidence based decisions – upon:

• investment
• marketing
• the annual programme of events

- however it needs you support in order to ensure the best information is put in and the best possible reports are produced – for every business to make use of.

I would ask for your support in delivering this – I am sure Nick Brooke Sykes (new CEO) can bring you up to speed on progress.

The best year in the last 25 is a big bonus during a period of uncertainty. I was dismayed yesterday to hear the news bulletins talk down the prospects for tourism during the period of the London Games. It is our determination to repeat the success of last year and make Bath equally successful as a draw for international and domestic visitors.

Clearly Bath Tourism Plus have a new marketing strategy and the promise (by Government) of new resources to deliver it however we also have a wonderful programme of events and festivals to support the Olympic Themes – and your industry. We need you to respond.

We applaud the Business Improvement Districts commitment to Bath in Fashion – the Christmas Lights celebrations however there are so many events that make up the season and I would just like to mention some that we get involved in – by financing or supporting them in order to bring visitors to the City.

Many of course are run by enthusiastic people who are present in this room.

For 2012 we will enjoy:

The Olympic Torch Relay

The Paralympic Torch Festival

Bath Comedy Festival

Outdoor Street Exhibitions

Bath Art Prize

Art at the Edge

St Georges Day Celebration

Cooler Jazz Week

Bath Festivals

Literature Festival

Music Festival

Children’s Literature Festival

Bath Cycle Week

Bath Marches (September walking festival)

These add to the 22 other events that take place in the City each year.

A series of sports events are also likely to be brought forwards to compliment the Bath Half Marathon – Sport Relief Mile and the Sky Ride:

The Aqua Sullis Music Event on the race course 15,000 audience for Jools Holland –coupled with a 10k race along the Cotswold Way footpath.

The contempory music programme has also be a blast – Brian May in Bath last year (which has me up and dancing in the isles) followed by  KT Tunstall & (for those that are interested) Joan Armatrading is playing in the Forum on the 8^th June 2012.

And we recently introduced Fireworks on New Year’s Eve – the benefits were;

• Changed the nature of the City Centre on that evening by altering the age profile of the nature of the crowd – introducing more family groups.
• Created a focus for the evening – which the Police believe added to the good nature of the crowd.
• Dispersed the crowd over a wider area – reducing some of the behaviours that had previously characterised the crush in the Abbey Church Yard.
• Creating a feature to attract more revellers to the City for the pubs, restaurants and night clubs.

Interestingly we had almost immediate enquiries from towns across the UK from customers wanting to book hotels next ‘News Year Eve’ if we could guarantee the Fireworks – I’ll do that now.

For customers generally we have supported the Bath Tourism Company in refurbishing the Tourist Information Centre – and it looks brilliant. A few days left on the building programme but the nature of the facility has changed and with the introduction of the Bath Box Office we hope we have the ‘one stop shop’ that customers requested.

We want to work with the Tourism and retail sector to develop the offer  –  the Christmas Lights event is a good example.

Future Bath Plus & the BID have developed the Christmas Lights event in partnership with the Chronicle, private sponsors, the Police, Emergency Services and the Council. It’s become a popular feature of Christmas.

The ‘switch on’ has been undertaken by Nicholas Cage, HRH Camilla Duchess of Cornwall and John Cleese supported by Amy Williams (Olympic Gold Medallist), the Chair of the Council and the Mayor of Bath.

This particular event couldn’t be delivered without the co-operation of all the parties but it is hugely important to the start of the festive season and the run into the Christmas Market – I would particularly like to congratulate Bath Tourism Plus on the 2011 event – bigger, better and a great advert for the City. I know we can do even more with this event.

Today our Director of Culture is with Department of Media Culture and Sport discussing how we can make more of the World Heritage Site designation to market Bath. We have a unique resource to bring to the market – with significant reach into a world-wide interest in protecting the very best of the Worlds Heritage. This is part of our interest in aligning national political figures with our local interests and making sure that we figure in discussions over the future draw of UK PLC and BaNES place within that set of Attractions, World Heritage Sites and Quality Environments for visitors.

In this context I have to also congratulate Thermae Spa, Southgate, Bath Rugby and a whole series of accommodation providers, restaurants, retailers, art galleries, niche shops & Museums that contribute to Bath’s offer – all year round, 365 days of each year &14 hours a day – in many cases, as a minimum commitment.

Of course we have issues to address including developing the market in North East Somerset but an incredible amount to celebrate.

Finally I would like to share with you one issue that has been expressed to us – as a group. We understand the Guest House owners concerns about Hotel development in the City. It is clear that we have very little we can do to ‘control’ development in an era that is development led. We are also constrained by European Completion Law from ‘distorting the market’ by constraining development – having said that we are concerned about the potential rate of growth and the speed of change the already planned developments will bring about.

We are looking a policy development in this area – looking further afield at developments in some of the major and historic cities – Liverpool and York.

Having said that they are looking at our practise in developing a Destination Management Plan and looking at the evidence base for decisions.

We are looking at the controls we can place on site in our ownership to direct future development – to fill in gaps in provision – rather than duplicate.

And we are going to place much more information into the market place – so that developers and operators understand our drivers as a business and resident community and understand our wishes for a certain style of provision – appealing to the essence – a ‘Quintessentially Bath’ approach – not down town any old town.

Interviewed by The Breeze today on the invitation to householders to join in the HomesFitForTheFuture campaign in which householders open up their homes for visitors to coe and see how homes can have theri energy consumption greatly improved and thus save money and reduce CO2 emissions. A win win campaign. The main weekend will be March 17 18 but the campaign to encourage householders to take up sonme of the ideas on offer for their own homes will last two months.

Went to the launch in Bristol today for their bid to win the Green Investment Bank Bristol. It should be in Bristol as this area has a large silicon industry, many green and environmental industries, 4 top universities and many other qualities. Bringing the bank to Bristol woul also benefit B&NES and our growing environmental and silicon sector.

Liberal Democrat Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Chris Huhne has announced that Bath & West Community Energy  (BWCE) in Bath will be receiving £30,825 from the first £4m allocation from the Local Energy Assessment Fund.

Locally owned and run  BWCE is one of the first of around 80 local energy projects to win funding from the new £10m Local Energy Assessment Fund.

The money will be used by BWCE to engage local, professional energy specialists who will survey five local schools, Ralph Allen, Oldfield, Newbridge, Bathford, and Colerne primary schools. They will suggest ways of improving energy efficiency and how any improvements could be financed. Using the schools as a base, they will also recruit and train community ‘energy champions’. These champions will work with pupils, their families and the school community to find practical and effective ways to reduce energy in their homes.

At a time when people are worried about rising energy bills, this funding is a welcome boost to help people save energy and keep costs down.  Projects like that of BWCE’s show people that going green is realistic, practical and will help them save money in ways that work in our area.  Local communities will be put at the heart of the UK’s effort to rise to the enormous challenge to get clean and cheap energy on our efforts to halt climate change and to end our reliance on erratic market of imported oil and gas.

‘Building Community Capacity’ workshop, Renewable & Low Carbon Energy in the West of England
Saturday 14 January 2012

My opening remarks for the workshop day

• I am very pleased to be here today to welcome you all to this important workshop about community energy

• As a local authority, we exist for the well-being of our residents
• This well-being is threatened by the twin challenge of climate change and rising energy prices
• We have made de-carbonising our district a priority and aim to help cut our district’s carbon emissions by 45% by 2026 and of course this is an important issue for all of us across the West of England
• So we are very pleased to be leading a series of low carbon projects, on behalf of all the authorities in the West of England, including one looking at what we can all do to realise the potential for ‘Renewable and Low Carbon Energy in the West of England’ – which this workshop is a part of
• Because of course local sustainable energy production is not just essential to cutting carbon emissions, but also to the future economic prosperity and well-being of our communities
• We are very concerned to ensure that local people have a real say and a real stake in local energy projects that are of real benefit to them in every sense – and that local businesses benefit and can create new ‘green’ jobs, retaining economic benefits locally
• For some time now we have been supporting the work of the Transition movement in our area. We have several very active Transition groups now – as well as a number of organisations that have emerged from Transition, such as Bath & West Community Energy and Energy Efficient Widcombe, who benefitted directly from the Council’s local energy champion training. ( Both of these organisations are here today)
• All of these community groups have been making a real impact on the ground
• Quite literally in some cases – I have just agreed to hand over a plot of land to Transition Larkhall in Bath for vegetable growing – not a topic for today, but nonetheless very important work in our efforts to cut carbon emissions!
• We are very proud of our partnership with Bath & West Community Energy, whose twin aims of delivering local sustainable energy and keeping the income from those projects in the community will help us to deliver our priorities.
• I know that you will be hearing from them later on this morning along with other community based organisations and local support organisations, so that we can all learn from each other
• And that really is the point of today – to see how we can work together to build further on all the exciting community based work that is already happening across the West of England and to see if we can find ways, together, to engage more local people in this work, to accelerate community sustainable energy development and realise the huge potential that we know is out there to generate local clean energy and make an even bigger difference
• So thanks again for making the effort to come along and I wish you a truly inspiring and productive day

This Sunday the advert goes out for the position of Chief Executive of Bath and North East Somerset. Our current CX has served for 14 years and been employed by the Council since it’s start in April 1996. He will be a hard act to follow but we are confident we will attract a good field. I have had 2 radio and 1 tv interview over the matter and their main concern seems to be why we are offering a lower salary.

As Leader of the Council I am also the official Olympic Champion for the Council area and so I am challenging all 64 of my Councillor colleagues to join me on the Olympic 2012 km challenge to also help raise money for Dorothy House hospice.

Any group of residents can also set themselves a challenge and sign up and choose from a number of charities to support.
More tail at this LINK. www.goldchallenge.org
My letter to my colleagues
Dear,
What will you be inspired to do for London 2012?
As part of the Olympic Year in Bath and North East Somerset, I would like to invite you to join me in taking part in the Gold Challenge and join a Bath and North East Somerset Councillor team challenge.
Gold Challenge is the UK’s first Olympic and Paralympic sport based charity challenge and is part of the mass participation legacy programme for London 2012.
With the support of the Sport and Active Lifestyles Team, I have set up a team called Team Bathnes Councillors to take on a 2012km distance challenge to raise at least £2012 for local charity, Dorothy House.  
This will be a great way to show case our commitment to creating active and healthy communities!
The good news is that we can cover the distance via one or more of the following sports and each member of the team’s individual total will contribute to the overall team total:
Running; Walking; Cycling; Swimming; Rowing; Canoeing; Windsurfing; Sailing; and Horse-riding
Full support is available from Martin Pellow in the sport and Active Lifestyles Team who can assist in setting up your page on the Gold Challenge web site and discussing fundraising ideas.  He can be contacted on 01225 396431 or email martin_pellow@bathnes.gov.uk
If you would be like to be part of Team Bathnes Councillors, let Martin Pellow know and he will make sure you are sent a link by email with instructions on how to join the team and set up your just giving page for Dorothy House.  Once set up you will be able to add you kilometres and see how the team is doing.    
More details can be found at www.goldchallenge.org/bathnes

The debate continues and I am delighted that Don Foster signed EDM 2292 which advocates the need for a full impact assessment on the technique before it is allowed in the UK. Here in B&NES the concern is on the possible consequences to the thermal waters of Bath if fracking is allowed in the Mendips.

The nuclear tragedy at Fukushima continues to provide fall out with contamination polluting the seas and putting at risk fish stocks and the livelihood of local fishermen.

Who on earth would be crazy enough to think building nuclear power stations next to an ocean is a good idea? Well apart from Japan several countries – including a rebuild at Hinckley point on the cards rather than closing it down.

The lessons from Japan and the consequences for our oceans need to be properly learnt.

good YOUTUBE click here

New legislation being discussed in the USA is potentially ab threat to the freedom of the internet. The proposal for DNS takedown is potentially not a good way forward and the excuse on protecting Intellectual Copyright seems a bit thin.

a Good YOU TUBE posting onm the subject can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYrFUSFff-k