Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Peter Edge and Mike Prescott.

(The minutes of the above meeting are attached)

The minutes of the meeting held on 17 October 2017 were agreed as a correct record.

The Forum was informed that there was still a lack of funding available to the Countryside Service for everything it wanted to and used to do. An update report from Tim Blythe, Countryside Service Manager, was requested for the April meeting of the LLAF.

The Coastal Access Working Group had met with Natural England on 12 December 2017.  The meeting had been very comprehensive and useful. Natural England had been very thorough was close to target on the coastal path.

Richard Toon informed the Forum that he had attended a Public Health Specialist meeting on 9^th January 2018. It had been a good and informative meeting.

Regarding Lost Ways research, Forum members enquired if there had been any progress in the request for user evidence forms to be slimmed down.

(Presentation from Justina Ma, Business Manager, Marketing Lancashire)

The Chair welcomed Justina Ma, Business Manager at Marketing Lancashire, to the meeting. Justina presented the Forum with Marketing Lancashire's Visitor Economy Strategy 2016 – 2020.

The Forum was informed that there was a total of 67.28 million tourism visits to Lancashire in 2016 and visitor numbers had grown by about 5 million over the last 5 years. It was vital to develop and promote Lancashire as a tourist destination. A total of £4.13 billion was generated within the local economy through visitor and tourism business expenditure. Lancashire's visitors supported more than 59,000 full time equivalent jobs.

The vision for Lancashire as a visitor destination by 2020 was:

·  To be recognised as one of the top 5 English counties for a refreshing and relaxing short break and an active family holiday.

·  To be known nationally as a culinary 'must visit destination because of the authenticity and quality of its food and drink, from field to table, locally sourced from the counties stunning valleys, plains, woodlands and coasts.

·  To be a preferred location for corporate events and association conferences because of the choice and value for money of its venues and the breadth and depth of the business tourism infrastructure.

·  For the county's cultural offer, and key annual events, to be one of the main reasons that visitors chose to visit Lancashire.

·  To be recognised for its stunning 137 mile coastline that effortlessly combined seaside heritage and contemporary leisure experiences and was centred on England's favourite resort, Blackpool.

·  A destination that offered outstanding customer service on a par with the best worldwide and was an example of best practice in offering accessible holidays.

The objectives for Lancashire's visitor economy by 2020 were:

·  To attract an additional 6.3m visitors.

·  To achieve a ratio of 80:20 between day and staying visits: 1.3m additional staying visitor and 5m additional day visitors.

·  To deliver an additional visitor spend of £650m.

·  To support an additional 5000 jobs.

Marketing Lancashire focused on 7 priority areas in trying to achieve and deliver its vision. The areas were:

·  Priority 1 – to raise the profile of the county nationally so that it attracted more visitors, particularly staying visitors.

·  Priority 2 – to create and maintain a robust evidence base for decision making. A county wide visitor survey had taken place in 2016 and there were 2,920 completed surveys. A summary was available on the Marketing Lancashire website.

·  Priority 3 – to develop the product and supporting infrastructure to increase the county's competitiveness and support year round business.

·  Priority 4 – to improve business support for visitor economy SMEs to help them improve their profitability.

·  Priority 5 – to increase the value of the existing visiting friends and relations market.

·  Priority 6 – to grow the value of business tourism including conferencing

·  Priority 7 – to improve the visitor experience, particularly the visitor welcome and customer service.

The Forum thanked Justina for an excellent presentation.

The Forum enquired if Marketing Lancashire had any links with public transport and was informed  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

The Coastal Access Working Group had met with Natural England on 12 December 2017.  The meeting had been very comprehensive and useful. Natural England had been very thorough and was close to target on the coastal path.

Natural England had been invited to the April meeting of the Lancashire Local Access Forum to give an update on its progress.

The Chair brought to the Forum's attention the figures on the statistics of the defects on the network from the Public Rights of Way Access Forum agenda. The Forum was alarmed at how fast the network was degrading.

It was pointed out that the defects of the network was do with a lack of funding and where the priorities of maintenance lay. It was important to spend money on looking after what it had and not what was needed.

Regarding claims against LCC, there were no actual figures on claims. It was pointed out that LCC was much more aware and robust at resisting claims.

The date of the next meeting is Tuesday 10^th April 2018 at 10:00am in the Duke of Lancaster Room (former Cabinet Room 'C'), County Hall, Preston.

It was noted that the next meeting of the Forum would be held on Tuesday 10 April 2018 at 10:00am in the Duke of Lancaster Room (former Committee Room 'C') at County Hall, Preston.