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New Forest District
Council wins Award for Sustainable Tourism
New Forest District Council (NFDC) has won its
third Beacon award for leading the way in sustainable tourism. Just 15 local
authorities in the South-East have today received these awards of excellence
from local government minister Nick Raynsford.
“Managing tourism and its impact on New Forest District’s unique life and
landscape is a highly charged and complex challenge,” said Cllr Barry
Rickman, NFDC portfolio holder for leisure and tourism. “We have worked for
nearly two decades to establish partnership and common ownership of a
sustainable approach to tourism. I’m delighted that this has been
recognised,” he said.
New Forest District Council’s ‘VICE’
approach to viability in any tourism decision (What is the effect on visitors,
industry, communities and the environment?) has become a model adopted by many
other authorities. The other theme of the sustainable tourism strategy is to
draw all the stakeholders together in four integrated programmes: visitor
stewardship, marketing and product development, community tourism and ‘LA21’
or environmentally friendly tourism.
“Partnership is at the core of our approach,” said Cllr Rickman. “We
work in partnership with all those involved in local tourism and especially
with the New Forest Tourism Association, which we were instrumental in
establishing in 1988.”
Anthony Climpson, the council’s tourism and publicity officer, received the
Beacon award from local government minister Nick Raynsford. He congratulated
NFDC, saying that the essence of the Beacon Council scheme was to raise
standards in local government services. “The awarding of Beacon status to
New Forest District Council reflects a high standard of achievement in
delivering sustainable tourism,” he said.
“But Beacon Status is not just about recognising achievement. It is also
about improving services everywhere and New Forest District Council will now
play an important role in helping to spread this good practice to other local
authorities."
Source: www.nfdc.gov.uk,
printed with the permission of David Atwill,
Head of Public Relations & Media
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