‘I live in one of the UK’s most-visited cities – the mind-blowing change is depressing’ | UK | News

A YouTuber has revealed the reality of what it is like to live in one of the UK’s most visited cities and the impact tourists have on everyday life.

The user, known as The Welsh Viking, lives in the popular North Yorkshire city of York, one of the most popular places for tourists to visit in the UK.

However, whilst tourists bring an undoubted economic boost to the city centre, the Welsh Viking listed them as one of the things he hates most about living in York.

He said the crowds had not only stopped streets from “functioning”, but that they also clog up the roads with both their own vehicles and hire cars.

The YouTuber explained: “York is a city of 150,000 people and every year two million people visit a city that is basically designed to have fewer than 100k people living in it.

“The centre, the city centre, the walled city of York is now less than a third of York and the majority of people who live in York do not live in the city centre and there are reasons for that.

“The number of people that you have to fight your way through, especially on super historic streets like The Shambles, the old butcher’s street is just mind-blowing and these are no longer really functional streets because of that.

“So the volume of people visiting the city means that some streets just don’t function anymore, they are just effectively displays for people to take selfies in front of which is kind of depressing when you think there used to be 30 butcher shops on The Shambles and now there are zero, that’s kind of sad.”

On the traffic issue, the Welsh Viking said that whilst the traffic was also caused by local residents trying to go about their daily business, again, a large proportion of these cars were tourists trying to park as close to the city centre as possible.

He said: “Half of the people, so a million people a year visit York in their cars or in hire cars. It is appalling trying to drive in the city. There is no free parking anywhere.

“I don’t actually have a parking permit because I don’t live in a street where you can have a parking permit so I have to just pay for on-street parking even though I live here and I need to the dentist and buy bread and stuff.

“And it’s a very first-world problem, but I hate it. I hate the fact that I need a car in the first place to get things done in the city because so many things have been pushed out of the city centre. I hate the traffic and a lot of that traffic is visitor traffic… Again, I’m not judging, but it just makes it difficult to live in a place that should be wonderful.”

Complaints about the state of York come as anti-tourism movements have swept across Europe and into the UK. Now Edinburgh is set to introduce a transient visitor levy – also referred to as a TVL – in order to fund the refurbishment of public spaces.

The BBC News reported that although the new levy is not without its support, its detractors say tourists already face enough charges in the city. Executive director of UK Hospitality Scotland told the broadcaster: “Tourist taxes are not good for this country.

“We are already not a very competitive destination. We have the highest rate of VAT on hospitality in Europe and we also have outdated business rates which all add to the costs for businesses and obviously those costs are which go on to the visitor experience.”