Parts of North Wales theme park'

OVERTOURISM RISKS BECOMING A GLOBAL BLIGHT

- By ANDREW FORGRAVE Countryside and Tourism Editor [e-mail]

AT WEEKENDS, Andy Mctaggart knows better than to venture out in his car.

As an Eryri resident, who loves exploring the national park, he's not willing to battle the hordes of tourists who clog the roads and take up all the parking spaces. Even during the week, in high season, outings can be tricky.

"We know what times to go out and when not to go out," he said. "So when we went to Cardigan Bay last week, we didn't head out until after 5pm. Social media has turned parts of the national park into a densely crowded theme park."

It's a claim that will chime with others across northwest Wales. At weekends the A55 and A494 is often bumper-to-bumper, the traffic bunching up all the way to the Britannia. Roads like the A496 can be choked, trapping people in villages like Llanbedr.

Queues of cars to Aber Falls stop everyday life in Abergwyngregyn. One of the cause celebres of overtourism is Newborough on Anglesey, where beach parking prices have been doubled in a bid to cut the tailbacks that regularly turned the village into a car park. Communities around Yr Wyddfa and Dyffryn Ogwen have long been blighted by illicit parking.

Yet few places typify the challenges of overtourism more than Andy's home town of Bala. As one of Eryri’s gateways, it offers dramatic scenery as soon as visitors enter the National Park, centred around the largest natural lake in Wales.

Since the Covid lockdowns Bala has firmly joined the list of Eryri’s honeypot sites. The area has long been popular, especially with watersports enthusiasts, but in recent years things have moved to a whole different level.

Parking data from 2021 gave a taste of things to come. That year, car park usage climbed 70.5% on the pre-Covid year of 2019. Since then, the town’s visitor surge has continued to grow, along with local tensions.