WHILE the Millennium Dome is soaking up hundreds of millions of pounds of public money in a struggle to get seven million visitors, Dartmoor National Park is attracting 10 million visitors with very little effort.

Or so it is officially claimed by the park authority.

Dr Tom Greeves, of the Dartmoor Society, challenged this view. He said this week it could not be an accurate figure and accused the National Park of using a spurious figure as a basis to attract grant aid for projects such as 'Moor Care'.

'Those familiar with Dartmoor know this cannot be an accurate figure as it would require an average of some 27,400 visitors each day of the year, in addition to the 33,000 residents,' he said.

'The only detailed analysis of visitor numbers to Dartmoor was carried out in 1994 as part of the national All Parks Visitor Survey, which concluded that the figure was 3.8 million visitor days — that is a day or part day spent in the park by a visitor — per annum.'

Dr Greeves challenged DNPA and the tourism authorities to jettison the figure of 10 million visitors each year.

He said not only was it a misleading figure to justify the need for high moor conservation, but was a doubtful foundation for certain policies relating to visitor management and distorted the expectations of local businesses.

'It's very important that decisions are based on reliable information,' he said.

'The discrepancy between the 'official' figure of 10 million visitors and the actual figure of something nearer four million has serious consequences for many policies, and calls into question the basis on which some grant aid is claimed.

'Not least it must have encouraged people to establish tourist-related businesses on false data,' said Dr Greeves.

John Weir, head of communications for Dartmoor National Park Authority, said assessing visitor numbers to countryside areas was very difficult.

He said the 1994 figure of 3.8-million visitors was calculated using only four cordon points located well inside the national park and was not, therefore, an accurate assessment.

Mr Weir added that other more comprehensive assessments involving 29 cordons had been carried out by Devon County Council in both winter and summer using automatic traffic counter data.

He said this suggested the annual figure was, in fact, around 10 million people.

Mr Weir said the Countryside Agency was currently working with all national park authorities to establish a comparable and more universally acceptable means of obtaining affordable annual data.

The Dartmoor Society is planning to hold a public debate — Dartmoor Tourism - How Much? at the Plume of Feathers in Princetown on Thursday September 21.