David Skaith, the Mayor of York and North Yorkshire, visited Skipton on February 3^rd to discuss a potential Visitor Levy for the region.

Representatives from the town’s business community and BID were in attendance to express their thoughts, concerns and feedback on the potential introduction of a Visitor Levy across North Yorkshire.

For a quick reminder – a Visitor Levy is a fee charged to visitors when they stay overnight in a destination. The money is collected and placed into a central pot to be re-invested into the designated region to benefit and improve different areas.

Further details on what a Visitor Levy is and what it could mean for North Yorkshire can be found on the Member Zone on the Skipton BID website by clicking here.

Some of the main concerns share by local businesses include a lack of fairness and imbalance when distributing the funding, as the feeling of Skipton becoming the ‘forgotten town’ was shared during previous similar projects.

Please see below some of the key points taken from the meeting with the Mayor earlier this week:

• The levy is NOT yet a done deal and still only at consultation phase.
• If it is passed, the Levy is likely to be implemented in 2027/28.
• The Mayor and his team are currently exploring the best process to collect the funding from accommodation providers.
• The Mayor is carrying out similar meetings across the region with the aim of gathering full feedback from different business communities.
• The Mayor is hopeful that Air BnB’s will be included in the Visitor Levy.
• If the levy is passed, local consultations will be held with each key area of North Yorkshire to gather feedback and ideas on how levy should be utilised.
• Potential opportunity in the future for formal structures such as BIDs to access some of the funding generated by the Visitor Levy.
• The Mayor is aware that areas such as Skipton have missed out on funding opportunities in the past and is keen to work with local community to utilise the levy funds in the best way possible for the town.
• The Levy collected will be placed into one central pot to be spread fairly around York and North Yorkshire.
• Mayor Skaith shared some of the potential plans to re-invest the levy – including to support the region’s transport systems, marketing York and North Yorkshire to a wider audience to drive people into the region and hosting larger scale events.
• The Mayor is hopeful of not charging North Yorkshire residents the levy using stays within the county.
• The Mayor wants to work alongside the different areas of North Yorkshire to form a joint approach to designs plans to utilise the levy in the best way possible.
• Mayor attending the next BID Board Meeting in March to hopefully provide a further update on Visitor Levy situation.

Those in attendance at the meeting were thankful to the Mayor for visiting Skipton to listen to the town’s feedback during the consultation phase of the Visitor Levy.