Blaise Museum has lost thousands of visitors a year since the introduction of controversial car parking charges at the estate. Bristol City Council installed pay-and-display at the main car park in March 2022.
Figures reveal that a total of 22,884 people visited the museum in the 12 months that followed, between April 2022 and March 2023. But this tailed off dramatically to 14,207 the following year.
And although it picked up again in 2024/25 to 18,005 visitors, this was nearly 5,000 fewer than in 2022/23. No reasonable comparisons can be made with the 1,687 visits in 2021/22, before the charges came in, because this was during the post-pandemic recovery phase with limited days open.
Bristol City Council revealed the statistics in response to a question at member forum by Cllr Bador Uddin (Conservative, Henbury & Brentry). He asked how much money had been predicted from the parking fees at the park compared with what was actually received, as well as visitor numbers to the museum at Blaise Castle Estate since they were introduced.
In a written reply, the council said: “The car parking facility at Blaise serves the wider estate as well as the museum and it is operated by the parks service. The income target was set at £100,000 across all parks sites with an anticipation it would be higher.
“Total car parking income for 2023/24 from Blaise was £101,398.”
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