Eryri to charge £3 a car at Yr Wyddfa car parks in first national park visitor levy

Visitors driving to the foot of Yr Wyddfa will pay a £3 levy on top of parking charges from April, after the Eryri national park authority voted on Friday to become the first in the UK to introduce a direct visitor charge.

The levy will apply at the park’s six car parks around the mountain, including Pen-y-Pass, Nant Peris and Llanberis, and is expected to raise about £1.4m a year. Members voted 14 to 3 in favour after officers reported that 785,000 people reached the summit in the year to September, up 22% on 2019, and that the park’s path-maintenance bill had risen to £2.1m.

The money will go to a ringfenced fund for footpath repair, the Sherpa’r Wyddfa shuttle bus network and the park’s wardens, who dealt with 1,340 incidents of illegal parking on the A4086 Llanberis Pass in the summer, including vehicles blocking the road for an air ambulance in July.

“People understand that a mountain that carries three-quarters of a million pairs of boots a year needs looking after,” said the authority’s chief executive, Rhian Goodwin. “We are not charging anyone to walk. We are asking those who bring a car into the most congested valley in Wales to put £3 towards the cost of their visit.”

The Welsh government, which has legislated for a nightly visitor levy on overnight stays from 2027, had been consulted and did not object. The park said local residents, blue badge holders and those arriving by bus or bicycle would be exempt, and that annual season tickets for Gwynedd residents would be priced at £10.

Opposition came from some businesses in Llanberis, where cafe owners argued the charge would deter day visitors on which the village depends. Gethin Parry, who runs an outdoor shop on the high street, said: “Everyone agrees the Pass is a mess. But a family that has already paid £20 to park now pays £23, and then they go to Betws instead. Nobody has shown me the numbers.”

National park bodies in England have been watching the Welsh decision closely. The Lake District authority has repeatedly said it lacks the legal power to levy visitors, though officers in both the Peak District and Dartmoor have examined parking-based schemes. Scotland has allowed councils to introduce a tourist tax on accommodation since 2026, but not on parking.

Mountain rescue teams in the area, who attended 312 call-outs on Yr Wyddfa last year, said they had not been promised a share of the levy but hoped to be. “Half our jobs start in those car parks,” said Llanberis team leader Owain Hughes. “Better buses and fewer abandoned cars would take some of the load off before anyone gets hurt.”