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The Craster Community Trust |
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PARISH COUNCIL CHURCHES LOCAL GROUPS |
Mobile Phone CampaignLetter from MIchael Craster, Chair of Craster Community Development Trust to O2. Telefonica O2 UK Ltd. 15 June 2010 For the attention of Kevin Hull Dear Mr. Hull One of the remits of the Craster Community Development Trust is to support the economic well-being of the Craster area. Part of this remit requires us therefore to assist in the development of the area as a tourist destination, bringing increased revenues and economic growth into the area. It has been recognised for some time that the lack of mobile telephone reception is seen as a significant drawback by many of the tourists who visit our area, and the Development Trust has been trying to draw attention to this problem. In order to highlight the level of demand, the Development Trust raised a petition in July of last year urging that the Parish Council make every effort to improve the mobile telephone reception in the area. That petition obtained over 600 signatures in less than 4 weeks (from a catchment area with less than 300 permanent residents, although with many more second homes and holiday lets). The Parish Council noted our concerns, endorsed the petition and raised this matter with our MP, the Rt Hon Sir Alan Beith. The Parish Council then further raised the matter with Northumberland County Council who also endorsed the petition. Since then, the Development Trust has received letters from the Northumberland Coast Area of Outstanding National Beauty Partnership, English Heritage and Northumberland Tourism, all of whom support our campaign and see the benefits that will be brought to the area if mobile telephone reception is improved. These should be viewed not only in terms of increased amenity for our visitors, but also as providing a vital link for the emergency services in an area where many of our visitors like to walk and where, unfortunately, accidents will happen. We were therefore very disappointed to see a copy of your reply to Sir Alan dated 12 January 2009, and a similarly negative approach in your more recent response to the Parish Council; we are also concerned that you have failed to understand the customer demand in the Craster area, which is largely driven by our visitor numbers and not by the local resident population. As you will now be aware, Craster Parish Council have undertaken some research regarding the visitor numbers that we see each year, and I would like to suggest that these figures may better inform your understanding of the situation. English Heritage report that 45,000 paying customers will have visited Dunstanburgh Castle (which is 1 mile from the village along a cliff path where there is no mobile signal available) in the last year. This cliff path also forms part of the Coastal Walk, many of the users of which do not in fact visit the castle, as they continue on their walk. As a conservative estimate, the path is used by at least 100,000 people each year. In addition the Craster Tourist Information Centre (TIC) report that they were visited by 58,000 people last year. The TIC is situated a quarter of a mile off the coastal walk so a good proportion of the walkers along the coastal path will not have visited it. That said there will inevitably be some element of double counting, but given the number of visitors who visit neither the TIC nor Dunstanburgh Castle, I estimate that Craster sees something like 150,000 visitors over the course of the year. This is likely to give a level of demand several orders of magnitude above the level predicted by an examination of the addresses for the NE66 area contained in your customer database. Can I therefore urge you to reconsider your decision in light of the actual level of demand and make what arrangements you can to improve the mobile telephone reception in Craster. I look forward to hearing from you. Yours faithfully Col. Michael Craster cc: Sir Alan Beith, PC, MP. |