Michael Fabricant today (9th June) challenged the tourism minister in the House of Commons about how to attract more visitors to Lichfield.

Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con): As my right hon. Friend will know, we only have a new cathedral in Lichfield: the original, built in 650, burned down, so our current cathedral was built quite recently, in 1280.

What can we do to encourage people to visit places such as Lichfield which, beautiful though they are, are regarded by bus and coach companies as slightly off the beaten track?

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr David Evennett): My hon. Friend has been a tremendous champion for his constituency over many years. Thanks to the Chancellor, we have the £40 million Discover England fund to incentivise the development of world-class itineraries.

I hope that my hon. Friend’s area and others like it will be looking to make applications to see that we get tourists to their parts of the world.

Michael adds: “’Visit Lichfield’ have been doing a great job promoting the City as a tourist destination and new hotels and wonderful restaurants and pubs have all helped in this regard. But still, many coach operators say that we are just too far off the beaten track of Oxford, Bicester Shopping Village, and Stratford upon Avon – well trodden tourist destinations.

“With the weather warming up, I hope we are able to make full use of Government funds available to promote our area and, if not, I will try and help access any money available.”