The Welsh car park that charges the English double.

Blackleaf · The Welsh car park that charges the English double.

The Welsh car park where the English are charged double
by JAYA NARAIN

30th October 2006

Pete, the car park attendant who favours the Welsh

It is one of the most popular tourist spots in North Wales but English visitors are being charged twice as much as the Welsh to use the same car park.

A car park attendant, who is supposed to charge £4 for an all-day ticket, is charging just £2 if drivers speak Welsh.

On entering the car park, used largely by tourists travelling on the Snowdon Mountain Railway, a motorist speaking Welsh asked the cost of parking.

But instead of charging him £4 as advertised, the attendant charged the driver just £2 saying: "Well, it's half price for Welsh people."

The Commission for Racial Equality is looking into the dual pricing policy at the car park.

Tourists and residents who do not speak the language have already accused car park bosses of "blatant discrimination".

Businessman Philip Wesley, 52, said: "I was completely stunned because I saw the motorist in front being charged less.

"When I raised it with the attendant he told me the driver had a season ticket and was therefore eligible for a half-price reduction. He said all this with a knowing smirk."

Another motorist said: "This is blatant discrimination not just against the English but also non-Welsh speakers who have lived in North Wales all their lives."

But last night the Welsh rights pressure group Cymuned hailed the attendant's dual-pricing policy as a good idea.

Aran Jones, chief executive of the group, said: "This attendant need congratulating, without a doubt. The idea of charging local people lower prices for local facilities is not uncommon in other parts of the world.

"This is also a price not just for local people, but people from outside the area who make the effort to speak a bit of Welsh in a Welsh area.

"I am sure tourist attractions, which are keen to keep attendances high throughout the year, would see a huge difference in their figures if they were to charge less for local people, who would go through the year.

"I am 100% in favour of making measures like this more widespread across the region."

The car park attendant is employed by the Royal Victoria Hotel in Llanberis which allows its car park to be used by visitors.

Hotel manager Mark Smith said he had not authorised smaller fees for Welsh speakers and had not been aware the practice.

He said: "I didn't know this was going on. It is a concern for us. Each ticket is individually priced and we match them up to our sales.

"Sales haven't been any different. If anything underhanded has been going on, we haven't been made aware of it."

Of a population of three million more than 25 per cent of residents were born OUTSIDE Wales but consider it their adopted home.

Out of all the residents around 650,000 can speak the language with the majority living in the less urban north and west Wales.

In addition there are an estimated 133,000 Welsh-speakers living in England, about 50,000 of them in the Greater London area.

Some tourist attractions already offer substantial discounts to residents of the area, with the Welsh Highland Railway and Ffestiniog Railway giving North Wales residents a 66 per cent discount through a loyalty card.

The hotel car park shut yesterday for the season, and is due to reopen in early 2007 using a ticket machine instead of an attendant.

North Wales Police spent £4,000 investigating anti-Welsh comments by quiz show host Anne Robinson on the BBC programme, Room 101 in 2001.

During the programme, which asks celebrity guests to list their pet hates, she described the Welsh as "irritating and annoying", adding provocatively: "What are they for?"

Reader comments

Fine, so long as it works both ways and there's far more to see in England than Wales.

- Bill, Chingford, UK

dailymail.co.uk

Barny Rubble · Re: The Welsh car park that charges the English double.

Cymro

Oh Barney so your an expert on the social attitudes of the Welsh now are you? I'd better not mention the Scots man I know who charges extra to English tourists wanting stuff from his business when they visit Scotland! ofcourse the actions of 1 man is definate proof of the deep rooted racism within Wales towards our English neighbours isn't it!

2.7million people in Wales claiming benefits and most being Welsh or Scottish? We only have 3,000,000 here in Wales and a few of us do work! Merthyr Tydfil is the area which claims the most sickness beneifts in the UK, but the situation in Merthyr is sad and difficult. Go down there and see for yourself!

I find that story quite amusing, go find a tourist area that doesn't charge tourists more for something. Happy searching.

Corby Boy

Barny's the boy eh? Jeez...

Clatch

Pete the car park attendant is a legend. Well done Aran of Cymuned for speaking up for him.

SLG

This happens all over. Tourists always get charged more than locals. I've been in a chippy in Edinburgh and been charged less than theUS tourist infront of me. Was that due to anti-Americanism? I've been on holiday in Spain at a market and charged double the local price to buy a a carpet - were they anti-Scottish?

Neil

If he was doing it to blacks he would be arrested. You can't be anti-racist except for some races.

Cymro

Neil

It could indeed be that the newspaper is lying - it would not be the first time - but I think, if we are going to discuss the article, our starting point must be what it says, otherwise why bother pasting it up in the first place?

Cymro

But why is charging Tourists more for a service Racist? If he was doing it only to English fine, that could be argued as being Racist.

And the article also states that he charges less if you SPEAK Welsh. So can I therefore assume that nonWelsh speakers will pay more too? So we have fellow Welsh people, English people, Scottish people, French people, American people etc all being effected. So how is this racist exactly?

The article may not be lying - I can assume this does happen. But it is clutching at straws in that it has nothing to do with Racism and they are assuming it is only against the English.

Clatch

Theresa

Barny Rubble

Neil

One O'Clock Gun

Is English a second language for you, Rubble?

Cymro

Neil

Well I suspect that if a particularcheckout assistant at Tescos started chatging half price to people Scots or indeed who spoke Govan they would be out the door in seconds.

However if Tescos made that their policy - yes I very much do think it would get reported.

Re Barney's point - we don't rely on EU handouts, in fact the EU costs the UK £50 billion a year which is about £4 billion from us. We do rely on handouts via the Barnett formula which amount to about ... £4 billion. If we are going to leave a union I would rather it was the EU.

SLG

Neil

Speciesist perhaps rather than racist. Cool

I was answering Cymru's point

Clatch

This is how one person responded to the article after many English complaints on the Daily Mail web site.....:

"Imagine an England were more than half the population of nearly *every* community were immigrants who hadn't bothered to learn English, who knew practically nothing about the history and culture of their adopted country, and who expected *you*, a native, to always use their language when in their presence, even if you're not talking to them directly. More than half of the people in your community haven't heard of Shakespeare; I don't mean they haven't read him, I mean they don't know he ever existed. They've never heard of The Beatles or Eastenders, either. Your doctor, dentist and bank manager don't speak *any* English, but your binmen do, most of them. Now imagine you heard a story about a car park attendant who gave a discount to the only English speaking stranger he'd met that day. Now tell me how you'd feel if someone from a country with a trivial amount of immigration compared to yours presumed to lecture you on tolerance, especially on the web forum of the Daily Mail."

Needless to say, it wasn't published. I picked it up off another board discussing this topic.

Neil

Imagine a London that was 25% immigrants.
You don't have to imagine it.

Clatch

Cymro

Neil, what you seem to be unwilling to realise is that this story is a Nothing story, made up essentially of certain newspapers enjoyment of drawing Welsh people or more specifically Welsh speakers are Narrow Minded, racist biggots.

Go to any tourist areas anywhere in the world and you will see this happen. It may of may not be right to do it, but to claim it is racist and exclusively AntiEnglish is absurd and takes attention away from real issues of racism which exist here in Wales and in the rest of the UK.

Cymro

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/...770&expand=true#StartComments

Here is a link from the Good Old Daily Mail about the story. Notice the hillarious comments left by worried readers of one of the British Fanzines. Worth a read.

Wolf of Badenoch

elidir

This is not a racist issue as language criteria falls outside of the 1976 race relations act and has been tested in court. language is defined as an aquired skill that is seperate and not dependant upon ethnic or racial identity, therefore the issue does not fall within the parameters of the CRE, although they won't miss an opportunity for attacking the Welsh language I'm sure. I've been charged more for things when on holiday in other places because i'm not local it's a universal policy- includimg england. This is a non-story as someone has pointed out the man appears to have discounted locals not charged extra for english people funny how the spin changes that to anti-english discrimination.

The Welsh car park that charges the English double.

Re: The Welsh car park that charges the English double.