The future
Undoubtedly the Valleys Regional Park will grow and change over time. We are currently developing a 10 to 20 year strategy.
We hope Convergence funding and other EU and domestic funding will help crucial development in its initial 5-7 years, and establish this as a model for delivering services collaboratively.
Quality
If we are going to raise the quality of tourism provision in South Wales, we will need to develop some criteria to help do this consistently. We will ensure that the Welsh Assembly Government Department of Economy & Transport's Creating Sustainable Places is the foundation for this piece of work.
Some of the most important things to enhance in this area are its unique character, its landscape, its style of housing, its history and its people. Some of the "quality" criteria will relate to this type of focus.
The criteria will ensure consistency in quality and approach across the park. They will also allow us to reduce duplication and play to organisations’ knowledge and strengths.
Monitoring economic and social outcomes
There is wide agreement across our partner organisations that central coordination of joint projects will enable better scrutiny and delivery of economic outcomes, monitoring and evaluation.
The partner organisations will develop programmes to encourage access and use of our facilities and green space in the local population.
In conjunction with the tourism bodies and organisation we will develop this alongside the priorities of attracting visitors to South Wales.