EXTRA investment is needed to mend footpaths across England’s largest county and more quality accommodation must be created to maximise economic benefits from booming interest in the countryside, it has been claimed.

Members of North Yorkshire County Council’s Richmond constituency committee also heard areas featuring a rich heritage and outstanding natural beauty were regularly being overlooked by tourism bosses.

David Shields, a director of Welcome to Yorkshire, told the meeting figures just released for the first months of this year showed Yorkshire was the only part of the country which had seen an increase in both overseas visitors and overseas visitors spend.

He said ongoing work to encourage visitors to stay in North Yorkshire included promoting paired attractions, such as Mount Grace Priory and Kiplin Hall and highlighting ‘honeypot sites’, such as Aysgarth Falls.

But councillors said the resulting tourism success was not evenly distributed.

They emphasised the shortage of places for people to stay and pointed towards a number of impending planning applications to increase the size of holiday sites.

Other members said tourism efforts needed to focus on publicising the county’s leading assets, such as the North York Moors National Park.

Cllr Bryn Griffiths highlighted how Welcome to Yorkshire’s Things to do and see in the Stokesley area web page was dominated by a photo of Harewood House stately home, 50 miles away, near Leeds, while Captain Cook’s village of Great Ayton barely got a mention in tourism brochures.

The authority’s leader, Councillor Carl Les, who is also a member of Welcome to Yorkshire’s board, said while more people lived in Yorkshire than Scotland and its economy was also larger, the region’s tourism budget given by central Government was a tenth of the size of that north of the border. He said: “I think Welcome to Yorkshire do brilliantly well with the resources they have.”