With the travel restrictions in Wales having now been lifted on July 6th and by now, most, if not all of the closed areas of National Parks and other beauty spots being reopened, these places are understandably seeing more footfall and an increase in pressure on the facilities.
Snowdonia National Park has developed an useful facility on their website to enable people to check on car parking availability, which seems to be updated every couple of hours.
https://www.snowdonia.gov.wales/authority/coronavirus/car-park-vacancies
However things are far from "normal" and there have been several reports and complaints by land managers from Pembrokeshire to north Snowdonia of an increase in illegal overnight stays in vans in laybys and by people roadside camping. Climbers have been moved on from such places as St Govan's at Pembs, Parisellas's Cave on the Ormes and from laybys around Snowdonia. Under the Welsh Covid regulations, overnight stays away from the place you are living are still not permitted under the regulations, and when overnight stays are allowed, which will probably be after July 11th, will then only be permitted in fully self-contained and pre-booked accommodation. However, van camping, wild camping and similar, will remain illegal even after that date. In the last few days Police and Park Rangers have taken enforcement action against such campers at several locations. All campsites, huts and bunkhouses are still closed and will be for the foreseeable future. It highly likely that from July 11th the regulations will change, but will still only permit overnight stays in pre-booked fully self-contained accommodation. Sites with shared facilities such as campsites will remain closed.
BMC is actively lobbying the Welsh Government to allow campsites to reopen, as we feel that managed and controlled camping is required to avoid unregulated scenes at honeypot sites.
Van and roadside camping is becoming a real issue - with sanitation being the main problem but when carried out by climbers at popular sites it has real potential to lead to long term access issues. Welsh Government have been very clear that if crowded scenes similar to those seen in parts of the English National Parks are seen in Wales, that they will reinstate the closures.
Elfyn Jones
BMC Access & Conservation Officer (Wales)
Post edited at 16:47