Tourism board cuts staff after ?1.3m funding loss

The coalition government is scrapping the NWDA and Cumbria Tourism?s revised level of public funding for the next financial year is not expected to be known until October.

The 44-strong workforce in Staveley, near Kendal, is now to enter a month-long consultation.

During that time, some positions will be made redundant, some new ones created and the board?s new priorities laid out.

Cumbria Tourism chief executive Ian Stephens said: ?This is not the end of Cumbria Tourism, but the action we are taking to address a change in how we will be funded in the future.

?We must reset what we do to ensure the Lake District and Cumbria continues to be professionally promoted as a place to visit ? irrespective of the new financial climate in the public sector.?

Tourism in Cumbria supports more than 35,000 jobs, or one in seven, and over 15 million people visit the Lake District and Cumbria every year.

Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, said: ?While the scrapping of the NWDA is not a bad thing per se, much more thought needs to be put into the impact of its scrapping on ? and the future of ? organisations such as Cumbria Tourism.

?Cumbria Tourism already receives much less government funding than its counterparts in regions such as Yorkshire and Scotland. ?For it to lose half its budget will have a huge impact on its ability to support the valuable tourism trade locally.

?I will be raising this funding cut with the business secretary, Vince Cable, and will be asking him to make sure that the value of the tourism trade to Cumbria is taken into account properly as decisions are made about the successors to the NWDA.?

Jonathan Denby, chairman of the Lakes Hospitality Association, welcomed the trend to a more ?self-reliant? approach to promoting tourism.

He said: ?We at the LHA represent 550 tourism businesses in the southern part of the county and the fact we are entirely self-funded allows us the ability to speak out on matters important to the tourism industry without any fear of losing funding.

?That has always hampered Cumbria Tourism in the past.

?Freedom from reliance on the government that pays for their activities may actually make it a little more effective in the future. ?We at LHA rescued the Where to Stay Guide when the local authority stopped funding it and since then we have been able to continue publishing and expanding it and making it a better product without any recourse to any local authority.

?I think that is a good example of what we can do, together with some help, to improve tourism in the Lake District.?

The announcement was also met with optimism from a tourism business in Copeland.

Peter Frost-Pennington, of Muncaster Castle, said: ?My initial reaction was to think it?s a great shame the funding was being cut.

?We have got to stay positive ? we have a new regime taking measures to reel back public funding.?