Ive just been reading the Wales on Line article, regarding the proposed parking charges, and improvements to the Pont Y Daf car parking area.
Currently the carpark only holds room for around fifty cars, but this will be increased to nearly 260 spaces, and visitors will be charged to park their vehicle, well that is the plan, but the idea is that National Trust members will not be charged to park their car.
If you use the facilities, and decide to walk up Pen Y Fan, then you should by right pay a small nominal fee for that pleasure.
The funding issue could be solved in one go, by using the substantial revenue collected to maintain what everyone has arrived to enjoy.
When or if parking charges are introduced, everyone should have to pay, and being a NT member should not allow free parking.
A National Park is owned by the nation, and carefully managed by skilled professionals, knowing that the environment is safeguarded for future generations, and it should not be a profit making venture by a body called the National Trust.
They do a magnificent job in maintaining their many historic buildings and gardens, but i am not a member, and do not intend joining in the for seeable future.
A parking charge at Pont Y Daf would not amount to a huge sum of money for a day's enjoyment, but just because the National Trust own most of the land in and around the mountain, it should not give members free access, when non members have to pay.
There is the notion that all countryside areas should be free for all to enjoy, and where parking revenue is collected, it should be used in the future maintenance of that area of outstanding natural beauty.
National Trust revenue, by membership levy and other parking charges, is used to run and maintain their many properties.
Access to their areas of countryside should be free, and Trust members should cough up the £300k for maintaining their property.
As long as the National trust own the land making up Pen Y Fan, there should be free access for all, and everyone should have to pay the parking charges if their introduced.