Coach Friendly Bury Nominated for rare Award

Reporter: Ask Bury
Date online: 12 March 2008

Bury has been awarded a Coach Friendly Tourism Award by the national body representing coach operators the CPT (Confederation of Passenger Transport).

The regional representative visited Bury in January to look at the facilities on offer for coaches and has since confirmed that we will be honoured with this prestigious award.

The reason this particular award is so significant is that they are not given on an annual basis but given as an acknowledgement of the effort which have been put into providing facilities and information to coach companies.  Convenient coach parking is especially important.

There are only three holders of the award in the North West, Southport, Eden District and Chester and only five others in the rest of the country including Rochester, Scarborough,  Stratford, Windsor, Salisbury. The presentation will take place at The British Travel Trade Fair at the NEC Birmingham on Weds 12th March ( BTTF is the main UK tourism exhibition)  Nick-Brook Sykes, Head of Marketing at the North West Development Agency, will be making the presentation on the VisitManchester exhibition stand.  Councillor Dorothy Gunther Executive Member for Environment and Transport will receive the certificate. Also present will be Graham Vevers from the ELR and John Ayres from Bury Market.,
Councillor Gunther remarked: "This is a tremendous accolade for Bury and we are obviously delighted to have been recognised for our achievements in accommodating coaches. The coach industry is hugely important to us which is why we provide excellent facilities, comprehensive information and signage.  This year Bury Markets alone has welcomed over 1000 coach visits and last year East Lancashire Railway attracted over 109, 000 visitors - this is really going to put us on the map", she concluded " That said, things can always be improved and we will make sure that we stay ahead of the game to keep them coming back for more."
 
Two new town centre attractions will join East Lancashire Railway and Bury Markets as tourist magnets in 2009. The Fusilier Museum is due to open in April 2009 and the redeveloped Bury Transport Museum, which will form part of the ELR Experience, will open in June of the same year.