WASN’T it a great – and unexpected – pleasure to have good weather on bank holiday Monday?
At Reeth Show in glorious Swaledale, many visitors seemed slightly shocked and bemused by the perfect combination of warm sunshine and a gently cooling breeze. We’re just not used to this on a public holiday!
During my tour of the sun-drenched showfield - where I tried my hand at Gayle Mill's lathe - I thought there can’t be many better places to be than a Dales showground on days like these.
Everything that’s great about our area is on display at shows like Reeth, Wensleydale, Osmotherley, Bilsdale, Stokesley and Muker. Quality livestock, great produce, baking, country crafts and businesses have their moment in the spotlight and perhaps most importantly there is that sense of a community coming together to celebrate a way of life. Many people in other parts of the country – and the world – would love to sample what is a unique experience.
In turn, that led me to think about the importance of rural tourism. I’m a member of Parliament’s watchdog select committee covering the work of the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and before the summer break we announced we would conduct an inquiry into rural tourism and what can be done to make this growth industry even more successful.
The issue is this: Britain is attracting more and more foreign visitors but we are struggling to get them to venture beyond London. Building on the excellent work of organisations like Welcome to Yorkshire, how do we get more of them to enjoy the great visitor experience we have here – and events like Reeth Show?
One thing we must do locally is effectively signpost the area from our lovely new upgraded A1 with brown tourist destination signs and I’m already working on that.
My select committee will be taking evidence from lots of different expert witnesses during its investigation but I want to hear your thoughts too on this. Write to me at rishi.sunak.mp@parliament.uk.
You’ll also find a short video I made at Reeth Show about this issue on my website at rishisunak.com
Watching Team GB do so well in the Rio Olympics has been the highlight of the summer and I took particular pleasure in watching Richmond’s Zoe Lee lead the Women’s Eight to a silver medal – which contributed to Yorkshire’s 13th place in the overall medals table above New Zealand and the Netherlands.
I say lead because Zoe was the crew’s ‘stroke’, sitting at the boat’s stern facing the cox. It was her responsibility to set the rate at which the crew rowed and it was Zoe who did that so successfully, dragging her teammates from sixth and last place at the half-way stage to the silver medal position at the finish.
What is also remarkable is that Zoe, a former pupil of St Francis Xavier School, had never touched an oar before she took up the sport at university. Zoe’s parents, Adrian and Susan, and all her family and friends in Richmond must be so proud.
Richmond has a quite a record for producing women Olympic rowing medallists. Back in 2004 at the Athens Olympics, Alison Mowbray, a former Richmond School girl with no experience of rowing won a silver in the quadruple sculls. That’s amazing for a small town more than 25 miles from any rowable water.