Sustainable Transport Partnership

Helen Roderick

Stakeholder Manager Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) National Park

We are currently looking at how we can make getting around Bannau Brycheiniog more sustainable.

As a National Park, we are racing to net zero by 2030, and transport is a big chunk of our emissions. Welsh Government have asked us to create a sustainable transport strategy to identify areas where we can decarbonise. We are working within the national policy context, aligning with the Wales-wide transport strategy, electric vehicle strategy and active travel strategies.

Travel

Travel accounts for 70% of visitor carbon footprint, and 31% of resident carbon footprint, so changing the way we travel is really a key part of our decarbonisation journey. A sustainable transport plan will ease the pressure on our honeypot sites, and in turn, our communities that are being affected by visitor car dominant travel. One of the first findings from our evidence gathering is (not surprisingly!) that parking and traffic management is difficult, and public transport frequency is patchy.

We are reliant on partnership working to achieve our aims of sustainable transport, as our powers over transport legislation are very little. We are convening partners such as our local authorities, the National Trust, Natural Resources Wales, Transport for Wales and the Welsh Government to line up with our approach. This is a great opportunity to work with a number of organisations, as there are so many people already involved in transport around the Park, so finding that consistency and shared approach will be really key.

Our Action

At the moment we are in our evidence base phase, looking at the knowledge and facts which will help us form our vision, and pinpoint the priority areas for work. We will be piloting a ‘park and ride’ between Merthyr and Brecon which will cover some of our busy places like Pen y Fan, and we will also be looking at the available technology to allow ease of parking.