Natural England describes the English coastline as "spectacularly beautiful, rich in wildlife and hugely popular. Its sandy beaches and cliff top routes generate 72 million trips a year to the undeveloped coast, and 174 million to seaside towns."
Facts about the coastal path
Length of England's audited coast 2748 miles
Satisfactory, legally secure path 1827 miles (66%)
No satisfactory, legally secure path 921 miles (34%)
Statistics and further information here
The South West Coast path
The South West Coast path is often taken as the blue print for the English coast path and if only half of its benefits were to be gained elsewhere, it would completely rejuvenate the social and economic life of our coastal towns and economies.
• The Coast Path is estimated to generate £307 million for the regional economy annually
• Residents of Dorset, Devon, Cornwall and Somerset are estimated to spend £116 million whilst using the South West Coast Path
• 73.3% of accommodation providers within one mile of the Coast Path consider it to be an important selling point for their business.
• The Coast Path is a key attraction for the day visitor to the region with 40% of tourism spend in the region being made by such visitors
Hadrian’s Wall path
Since opening the path in 2003 has been responsible for a large increase in walking tourism to the area, including:
• 99% increase in long-distance walkers
• 23% increase in day walkers
• 137% increase in the economic impact of long-distance walkers
• 40% increase in the economic impact of day walkers
• £2 million spent locally by long distance walkers in 2007
• £3 million spent locally in 'hot-spots' along trail in 2007
• £19 million spent locally since the Trail opened in 2003
Pembrokeshire Coast Path (National Trail)
• Over one third of accommodation providers located on or near a National Trail describe the Trail as ‘very important to the profitability’ of their business.
• On average, accommodation providers attribute 36% of their turnover to the National Trail.
• Accommodation providers believe that almost 40% of their visitors come to the area to walk the National Trail.
• Accommodation providers believe walking is of some importance to over 60% of their visitors.
• 68% of accommodation providers said that the proportion of their visitors making use of the National Trail had grown over the last 3 years.
• Almost half of all accommodation enterprises were found to provide accommodation for tour operators providing a walking package on a National Trail.
• Shops of all kinds were the type of service enterprise most likely to benefit from proximity to a National Trail, followed by pubs/inns and café/restaurants in roughly equal proportions.
• Just over one half of service providers say that the National Trail provides them ‘with welcome additional income’. A further one fifth describe the National Trail as ‘very important to the profitability’ of their business.
• The Pembrokeshire Coast Path has the greatest impact on accommodation providers, with almost half saying that the Trail was ‘very important to the profitability’ of their business.
