Tourism: Bedfordshire

Blake Stephenson Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered tourism in Bedfordshire.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. Bedfordshire is a fantastic place to visit and spend time; it is just over 30 minutes outside London on the Bedford line and is served by the M1 motorway and a major international airport in Luton. But despite that easy access and the attractiveness of our county, too often Bedfordshire is a place that people pass through and not somewhere that they stay. Our international tourism economy is worth just £100 million, and our domestic tourism economy is worth just £250 million. In this place, I want to do all that I can to change that, and to grow our tourism economy and encourage visitors both domestic and international to come to see all that Bedfordshire has to offer, particularly the beautiful communities in Mid Bedfordshire. I would be happy to welcome to our constituency any colleagues who wish to see our beautiful county for themselves.

We are fortunate in Bedfordshire to have so many beautiful and interesting historic sites, including the Moot Hall in Elstow, Woburn abbey, Wrest Park in Silsoe, Ridgmont station and its fantastic heritage centre, Ampthill Park House and so many others. Visitors who want to get out into nature can walk the Pegsdon hills on the edge of the Chilterns national landscape area or hike the Greensand ridge, perhaps strolling through the scenic Woburn Deer Park to the village of Eversholt, made up of 13 of Bedfordshire’s historic “Ends” settlements, and up past the ruins of All Saints church at Segenhoe, a ancient scheduled monument.

On their way to browse the historic market town of Ampthill, first awarded charter market status in 1219 by Henry III, visitors might pass through the village of Millbrook, home to one of the largest vehicle testing centres in Europe, which has played host on the silver screen to British icons from James Bond to Jeremy Clarkson. Beyond Ampthill, they will come across another scheduled ancient monument at Houghton House, before passing through the village of Maulden, home to sites of special scientific interest such as Church meadow and Maulden wood, and on to Clophill, where they can see the remains of Cainhoe castle and enjoy scenic views of the whole Greensand ridge from St Mary’s church.

[Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech, and I strongly support his work for his county. I have friends in his area and have visited some of those wonderful beauty spots. We have exactly the same challenge in my constituency: many people pass through our town but do not recognise or have time to appreciate the wonderful heritage there, particularly the ruins of Reading abbey and Reading gaol, where Oscar Wilde was incarcerated, as well as our beautiful riverside and many other spots. Does he agree that there are other towns and country areas in the south of England that, like Bedfordshire, could do with greater promotion of their wonderful beauty and visitor attractions?

--- Later in debate ---

[Blake Stephenson]

I absolutely agree. Commuter towns, particularly those just outside London, become areas that people travel through and do not stop off in, and we can do more as a country to promote them as destinations. I will come on to some ideas on that in a moment, particularly for my constituency.

If people want to spend more time in beautiful countryside, they could visit the beautiful Sundon Hills Country Park, the new community forest in Marston Vale or the Barton hills national nature reserve. While in Barton-le-Clay, they can do some shopping in the charming Olde Watermill shopping village. Across our villages, people can experience the historic and characterful traditional English village pub, whether that is The Chequers in Westoning, The Greyhound in Haynes or The Star in Chalton. Our pubs have been at the centre of village life in Bedfordshire for centuries and continue to be vibrant places to grab a drink and a bite to eat.

Families can come and visit the Woburn forest Center Parcs just south of Millbrook or Go Ape in Woburn, or perhaps spend a day at one of our fantastic safari parks in Woburn or Whipsnade—the latter in the constituency of the hon. Member for Luton South and South Bedfordshire (Rachel Hopkins). Also in her constituency is the historic estate of Luton Hoo, which I hope will be able to welcome the Ryder cup in the coming decade. Golf fans need not limit themselves to Luton Hoo, as we have fantastic golf courses right across Bedfordshire, including the Millbrook, Aspley Guise & Woburn Sands and South Bedfordshire clubs in my constituency.

We do not just have great golf. Rugby fans can enjoy Rugby Football Union championship rugby at Ampthill, and football fans will soon be able to visit a state-of-the-art new stadium at Power Court to watch Luton Town, or they can get an authentic non-league football experience at Ampthill Town, Totternhoe or Barton Rovers. I met Barton Rovers recently and I hope that the Minister will work with me and the club to explore how we can secure funding for a new 3G pitch that will help us to take the club to the next level.

I trust that colleagues will forgive me for my whistle-stop tour of the attractions of Bedfordshire, and in particular some of the fabulous ways to spend time in my beautiful Mid Bedfordshire constituency. But I feel that it is important to do all we can to promote the varied reasons to spend time in our county because, as I noted, Bedfordshire should be a prime location for a thriving tourism industry. It is 30 minutes from London, centrally located between Oxford and Cambridge, home to an international airport and served by a major motorway. But too often, we are a county that people pass through; they do not stop to spend time and money in our local communities. My vision for Bedfordshire is a place that is more than a blur through the train window—a place where domestic and international visitors will get off a plane or train and be excited to stay a while.

Since my election in July, I have met VisitEngland, UKHospitality, Experience Bedfordshire, local businesses and other local stakeholders to understand what we need to do to grow our local tourism, hospitality and leisure economy. Bedfordshire is one of the last counties in England without a local visitor economy partnership. Although there are differing views on exactly what the right solution to promote our local tourism industry looks like, the consensus has been clear that we need to do more to promote it.

The imminent delivery of East West Rail will help to deepen our county’s connections to Oxford, Cambridge and nearby Milton Keynes and provide new markets for our local tourism industry. The potential of a major expansion to Luton airport, which would bring millions more passengers to Bedfordshire, and which is currently sat on Ministers’ desks, offers another major opportunity to put Bedfordshire on the radar of more potential visitors.

But we must ensure that Bedfordshire is in the right position to attract those new visitors from across Britain and overseas and make them see our county as a place to stay, not just a place to travel through. That means getting the right support for local tourism and ensuring that Experience Bedfordshire and our local councils have the resources they need to promote our county. It means fully embracing the opportunities provided by the busy Bedford line and the new East West Rail services on the Marston Vale line to put our county’s best face forward at local stations to entice holidaymakers to get off the train and stay a while locally.

Attracting new visitors to Bedfordshire also means promoting our county and its destinations more abroad, taking advantage of the UK’s international campaigns to promote UK tourism in order to promote tourism in Bedfordshire. We can offer international visitors an authentic experience of a traditional British county and all the best that Britain has to offer, all within an easy commute of London, Oxford and Cambridge. We need to ensure that we promote that. It means doing more to ensure that the people coming off planes at Luton airport are encouraged to stay in Bedfordshire. It also means protecting the things that make our county such a fascinating place to visit. We must do more to ensure that the small, independent and often family-run businesses at the heart of our tourism, hospitality and leisure economy have the support that they need from Government. They need to be supported to employ more local people, not taxed more through an employers’ national insurance hike that will make it nearly three times more expensive in taxes alone to employ a full-time worker on minimum wage.

We must also ensure that the Government’s efforts to deliver thousands of new homes in Bedfordshire do not come at the cost of the things that make it a great place to live, work and spend time. Natural England highlights the vital importance of the whole Greensand ridge national character area in protecting our distinctive estate villages from inappropriate development. We need to protect and enhance the historic character of our villages with sympathetic, small-scale development while restoring nature and conserving the beautiful landscapes of the Chilterns and the Greensand ridge. We must ensure that development, where it does happen, comes with the right infrastructure, so that we build great places with strong local character where people want to spend time, not just characterless, gridlocked suburbia that they could find anywhere.

I do not want the Minister to misunderstand me. I know that we cannot grow our tourism economy in Bedfordshire by just stopping, standing still and looking back at the past. From my conversations with Experience Bedfordshire and others, I know that one of the biggest barriers holding back tourism in our county is a lack of accommodation providers. If we are to seize the opportunities to grow our local tourism, hospitality and leisure sectors, we must attract new hotels and wider accommodation settings.

We have some fantastic opportunities to grow our tourism industry in Bedfordshire. They include the Bedford to Milton Keynes waterway park, which would run through the Marston Vale, near the villages Brogborough, Marston Moretaine and Wootton in my constituency, connecting the Grand Union canal and the River Great Ouse. This project will attract 750,000 visitors, create nearly 1,000 jobs and bring in an extra £26 million to our local economy.

We need to ensure that this project is delivered to a high standard, as quickly as possible, to seize the benefits it will bring to our economy. Government support would help us to deliver this project faster and I hope the Minister will ask his officials to look at how the Government could assist in delivering this project of regional significance.

However, the waterway park is not the biggest potential boost to our local tourism economy. The site that used to be the world’s largest brickworks, at Stewartby in my constituency, which once fired the bricks that built our nation, now has the potential to power our local economy again, as the home as the Universal UK theme park project.

Backed by 92% of local people and local leaders from all parties, this would be a £50 billion boost for our local economy, bringing around 20,000 jobs for local people, but would also, crucially, offer us an opportunity to turbocharge our local tourism, hospitality and leisure sectors with potentially 12 million more visitors in our area every year. It is a game changer—bringing millions more visitors to Bedfordshire to stay in our communities and see all that we have to offer.

Universal could be the key to unlock the Government’s growth mission in Bedfordshire, bringing in billions in investment that will have both direct and indirect benefits for our communities. We have already seen what the Jurassic coast has done for tourism in England. I come here today to ask the Minister to work with us to unleash the benefits of “Jurassic Park” on tourism in Bedfordshire.

[The Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism (Chris Bryant)]

I knew that was coming.

[Blake Stephenson]

I could not resist it.

Bedfordshire is a beautiful, historic place to live and spend time in. We are fortunate to have some absolutely fantastic local hospitality, leisure and tourism businesses. As its Member of Parliament, I am determined to put Mid Bedfordshire on the map as a place for people to visit.

If the Government are serious about their growth agenda, Bedfordshire represents a real opportunity. Unlocking Universal, delivering the waterway park and ensuring that we have the right promotion in place to take advantage of the opportunities presented by East West Rail and Luton airport would turbocharge our economy.

I hope the Minister will work with us to deliver this agenda. I would welcome him to Mid Bedfordshire to show him the opportunities and some of our beautiful attractions first hand.

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

I am pleased to be able to offer my Jurassic chairmanship. I call Sir Chris Bryant.