Nbd Back To Len Funnells Ownership

[JennyMorgan]

1 hour ago, Victoryv said:

Living in a National Park I actively welcome and encourage visitors, our livelihood depends upon it, but for the last 5 years the Peak Park have concentrated all there efforts on cyclists, to the point that, I am told we now have the greatest concentration in the country at weekends.Perhaps the Broads National Park will follow suit, sell it to cyclists, fill the flat, cycle friendly roads with pushbikes, blissfully they can't get in your way when on the boat!

 

Some years ago, when on the Broads Society committee, myself and several others pushed for long distance trekking, cycling and walking routes in and around the Broads. Linked to that would be an initiative to provide a network of B&Bs, hostels and campsites. A resounding lack of support from all and sundry! I'm afraid the vista of revealing black lycra clogging up our roads at weekends didn't generate general appeal! I still think it's a good idea but no one is going to get rich on it and perhaps there lies the problem. 

[JennyMorgan]

1 hour ago, grendel said:

you would need to put a lot of air in the tyres for them to get about on the broads

Plenty of hot air available!

[johnb]

My first reaction is who and where for advertising the broads was hire companies and boat shows-obvious and basic. I haven’t visited boat shows apart from excel. Last time I visited I had a conversation with a lady representing a broads hire company. It transpired she had never visited the broads or had a boating holiday. I and I guess most people on this forum could speak with more knowledge and enthusiasm than her. She was prettier than me though....,

[JanetAnne]

17 minutes ago, JennyMorgan said:

Plenty of hot air available!

You beat me to it!

[jeffbroadslover]

I've just spent over 30 minutes reading through this thread with no mention of the subject in the title.

Do we seem to have deviated away from the original post?

Jeff

[webntweb]

1 hour ago, Victoryv said:

. . . Perhaps the Broads National Park will follow suit, sell it to cyclists, fill the flat, cycle friendly roads with pushbikes, blissfully they can't get in your way when on the boat!

 

I wouldn't bank on it.

image may be subject to copyright.

[JanetAnne]

1 minute ago, webntweb said:

I wouldn't bank on it.

image may be subject to copyright.

Gotta get me one of those!

[rightsaidfred]

2 hours ago, Victoryv said:

Living in a National Park I actively welcome and encourage visitors, our livelihood depends upon it, but for the last 5 years the Peak Park have concentrated all there efforts on cyclists, to the point that, I am told we now have the greatest concentration in the country at weekends.Perhaps the Broads National Park will follow suit, sell it to cyclists, fill the flat, cycle friendly roads with pushbikes, blissfully they can't get in your way when on the boat!

 

Just a thought but when looking at the marketing aspect and statistics I think there Is probably quite a difference between visitor numbers as in above and true holiday makers as in hirers.

Fred

[Smoggy]

4 hours ago, webntweb said:

I wouldn't bank on it.

image may be subject to copyright.

That'll make for an interesting breydon crossing on a windy day.

[Victoryv]

20 hours ago, rightsaidfred said:

Just a thought but when looking at the marketing aspect and statistics I think there Is probably quite a difference between visitor numbers as in above and true holiday makers as in hirers.

Fred

I agree, the cycling faction would appear to be day trippers, they prefer to park for free., so clog up the villages, not sure that they bring very much to the party, maybe a cup of tea and a bun at one of the cafes.

We need tourism with a good spend, as do the Broads, I like the idea of promoting distance walking with overnight stays and sherpa service, a couple of years ago we walked coast to coast on the same basis, one of the most expensive holidays I have ever had !

I don't begin to understand the marketing philosophy behind our national park, we receive targeted magazines, promoting , generally, the benefits of cycling to people that live here, I understand the benefits of cycling, I also know that which ever way you go there is a big hill.Why not spend this hard earned money promoting tourism from outside the park ?

 

[grendel]

when I was staying at the hickling campsite there was a company that came and set up a tent for a lady that was doing a walking or cycling holiday, basically she just got up and started toward her next destination and the company came and took down the tent, moving it lock stock and barrel to her destination campsite and re setting it up ready for when she arrived later that day, sounds a wonderful sort of holiday, but I suppose not that cheap if someone is basically doing all the work for you.

[Smoggy]

41 minutes ago, grendel said:

when I was staying at the hickling campsite there was a company that came and set up a tent for a lady that was doing a walking or cycling holiday, basically she just got up and started toward her next destination and the company came and took down the tent, moving it lock stock and barrel to her destination campsite and re setting it up ready for when she arrived later that day, sounds a wonderful sort of holiday, but I suppose not that cheap if someone is basically doing all the work for you.

And you can't say you've been on a "green" walking holiday can you, but I bet a lot do.

[Guest]

Half of the fun of taking a tent away with you is wrestling with it as it attempts to take to the wind and blow away, just at that precise moment you think you've finally managed to connect all of the poles into something resembling a straight structure isn't it?

And let's not pretend any of us haven't been rolling around on the floor when packing it away in dual attempt to keep it as a possession whilst trying to extract all the air from it to fit it back into it's impossibly small designed bag.

No? Just me? 

[Smoggy]

Ah the day of bike rallies, get all the gear stowed, get the tent strapped to the bike, now where is the ignition key? Oh yes in that little pocket in the back of the tent!!!!!! (for safe keeping of course)

Many a sodding time!

Dome tents fly well, at one rally we had decided the tent had finally seen it's last days and no longer could we tape little chef cutlery to broken poles and gaffer tape over the splits in the flysheet so on sunday morning we cleared our stuff out, pulled the pegs and tied one guy rope to the sissy bar on my bike, rode round to the remains of the bonfire while the tent floated geacefully behind me and it just landed gently slap bang in the middle of the fire, untied guy rope and rode back to the pile of gear we were taking home.

Then went tent shopping.....

[rightsaidfred]

Before we get to carried away lets not forget that unlike NPs the BA area is virtually all water with little accessable land limiting most activities to boating  and angling, the majority of visitor interest in Norfolk is outside the BA boundries.

Fred

[JennyMorgan]

3 hours ago, rightsaidfred said:

Before we get to carried away lets not forget that unlike NPs the BA area is virtually all water with little accessable land limiting most activities to boating  and angling, the majority of visitor interest in Norfolk is outside the BA boundries.

Fred

All very true, Fred. The Broads Authority has its defined Executive Area which JP recently tried to extend, a move that failed to impress neighbouring authorities. In principle a good idea but maybe for the wrong reasons and support was not forthcoming. Not so long ago I e-mailed the 'real' national parks people and asked them to define the so called BNP boundaries which of course they couldn't, for obvious reasons that I shan't bore you with!!!