Seasonal Hospitality Businesses in Coastal Areas

Rachel Gilmour Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. I represent Exmoor, the northern edge of which runs along west Somerset to the coast. There, the visitor economy supports about two thirds of all employment: there are 8.4 million visitor days a year and economic activity of upwards of £700 million. However, my constituent Cathy Britton, who runs Eduardo’s pizzeria and café in Porlock, tells me that her turnover is down by 50% from last year. Rising business costs and falling footfall have left her feeling squeezed. Napoleon called England a “nation of shopkeepers”—disparagingly, as it happens. But Cathy says that European visitors, who frequently come to walk in the steps of Ada Lovelace along the South West Coast Path, are bemused by how quiet the high street is and by how few shops are open.

The ripple effects of dwindling visitor numbers are felt beyond the seafront, too. My friend Paul Hardy, an antique dealer in Dulverton—some 10 miles away from the coast—tells me that business is down 70% on last year. He relies significantly on passing custom from the tourist trail: visitors who come for the coast and the moor, and who spend along the way. He now fears the additional impact of an overnight visitor levy, a measure that risks compressing the season on which businesses such as his depend. It is worth making the obvious point that coastal seasonal hospitality is not a self-contained economy; it is the engine that drives commercial activity across a much wider hinterland.

No economy functions without movement, and in west Somerset, movement is precisely what is missing. Take the B3191 at Cleeve Hill between Watchet and Blue Anchor, which has now been closed for two years. Both towns are coastal, with some 6,000 people and over 100 businesses. They are effectively dependent on a single vehicular route. Should that remaining route fail, the towns could be cut off entirely, with access gone—and with it, the tourism trade on which that coastal economy depends. I ask the Government directly: will they draw on the Department for Transport structures fund, a £1 billion pot established precisely for situations such as this one, to fix it?

Butlin’s in Minehead is a major employer for my constituents. It hosts some 6,000 holidaymakers a week during the peak season. But west Somerset is in many respects a cul-de-sac—difficult to reach and navigate after arrival. That is bad for visitors, and for the businesses and workers who depend on that footfall. Supporting seasonal hospitality in coastal areas is a question of business rates, business rates relief and tourism, but it is also a matter of sustained investment in our roads, bus routes and rail connections—the transport infrastructure that makes these coastal places accessible in the first place.

[Several hon. Members rose—]