Anger in South West as Yorkshire given £10m tourism aid

Tourism agency Welcome to Yorkshire will get £10m next year from regional development agency Yorkshire Forward in the final instalment of a three-year deal, £3.4m less than the original funding deal agreed before spending cuts were inflicted.

But the deal has infuriated tourism officials in Devon and Cornwall who are angry they have not been offered similar levels of funding from their development agency.

The South West regional development agency was giving its tourism agency £2m over three years but is cutting that from April because it says the Government has told it not to sign new contracts.

South West Tourism chairman Alistair Handyside has even written to Visit England, the organisation in charge of marketing the country, saying: “I cannot begin to express how angry and mystified everyone involved in the visitor economy in the South West is by this (Yorkshire) grant.”

However, Yorkshire’s tourism bosses hit back last night and dismissed the intervention from the South West.

Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, said: “The £10m funding for 2011/12 is the final year of a three-year contractual agreement with Yorkshire Forward, signed in 2009. It is an existing funding agreement being honoured, not a new one being negotiated.”